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Story  of  the  Nations 

A  Series  of  Historical  Studies  intended  to  present  in 
graphic  narratives  the  stories  of  the  different 
nations  that  have  attained  prominence  in  history. 


In  the  story  form  the  current  of  each  national 
life  is  distinctly  indicated,  and  its  picturesque  and 
noteworthy  periods  and  episodes  are  presented  for 
the  reader  in  their  philosophical  relations  to  each 
other  as  well  as  to  universal  history. 


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MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND  PERSIA 


ARClU.i-   i  .-.!,. :i., — IN   Gl.AZED    TILES    ALONC,   TUF.    PALAtk   :jF    DAREIOS 
I.,    AT    SUSA.      KXHUMED    BV      iR.     DIEULAFOY,    IN    l885. 

Frontispiere. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONS 


.MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND 
PERSIA 

INCLUDING  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ZEND-AVESTA 
OR  RELIGION  OF  ZOROASTER 

FROM  THE  FALL  OF  NINEVEH  TO 
THE  PERSIAN  WAR 

(continued  from  "the  story  of  Assyria") 

'ZENAIDEA.  jRAGOZIN  '"    ' 

MEMBER   OF    THE    "AMERICAN    ORIENTAL    SOCIETY,"    OF    THE   SOClfiT^    ETHNOLO- 

GIQUE  "    OF    PARIS;  ASSOCIATE    OF   THE    "VICTORIA 

INSTITUTE  "    OF   LONDON,    ETC. 


"  He  (Carlyle)  says  it  is  part  of  his  creed  that  history  is  poetry,  could  w 
tell  it  right." — Emerson. 

"Da  mihi,  Domine,  scire  quod  sciendum  est." — "Imitation  of  Christ." 
(J''' Grant  that  the  knowledge  I  get  may  be  the  knowledge  worth  havings- 
Matthew  Arnold^ s   Translation.) 


NEW  YORK 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

LONDON :  T.  FISHER  UNWIN 
1903 

49563 


•  *  '**     '  *cdfVRiGkf** 

Entered  at  Stationers^  Hail,  London 

By  T.  Fisher  Unwin 


Ube  imtclietbochet  press,  Hew  fiorh 


CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS. 


I. 


A  Notable  Religious  Survival  :    the   Parsis — 

Anquetil   Duperron    ....         1-16 

§  I.  The  Parsis,  descendants  of  the  Persians  and  followers 
of  Zoroaster. — §  2.  The  Parsis  not  heathens. — §  3.  Con- 
quest of  Persia  by  the  Arabs. — §  4.  Oppression  and  con- 
version of  the  country. — §  5.  Self-exile  of  the  Zoroastrians. 
— §  6.  Their  wanderings  and  settlements  in  India. — §  7. 
Principal  tenets  of  their  religi'  n. — g  8.  Discovery  of  Parsi 
manuscripts. — g  9.  Anquetil  Duperron  and  his  mission. — 
§  10.  His  departnre  for  India. — §  il.  Obstacles  and  hard- 
s'lips. — §  12.  His  translation  of  the  Zend-Avesta. — §  13. 
He  is  attacked  l)y  William  Jones. — §  14.  His  mistakes  and 
disadvantages. — §  15.  Eugene  Burnouf,  the  founder  of 
Eranian  scholarship. — §  16.  Advance  and  results  of  Eranian 
studies. 

II. 

The  Prophet  of  Eran — The  Avesta     ,         .       17-33 

§  I.  The  religions  that  have  sacred  books,  and  their  de- 
mands.— §  2.  They  claim  to  be  supernaturally  revealed. — 
§  3.  The  Veda  and  the  Zend-Avesta — the  sacred  books  of 
the  Hindus  and  Aranians. — §4.  "Zend-Avesta"  a  mis- 
nomer.— §§5,6.  "  Pehlevi "  the  Persian  language  of  the 
Sassanian  period. — §  7.  Uncertainty  and  obscurity  of  most 
points  concerning  the  Avesta. — §  S-.  Ancient  writers  on 
Zoroaster. — §  9.  The  "  Gathas  "  (>ongsl  the  oldest  portion 
of  the  Avesta. — §  10.  Scant  information  on  Zarathushtra 
(Zoroaster)in  the  Avesta. — §  11.    King  Vishtaspa,  the  friend 


iv  CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS. 

and  follower  of  Zarathushtra.— §  12.  Loss  of  the  greatest 
part  of  the  Zoroastriaii  literature. — §  13.  Survival  of  some 
texts.  The  parts  of  the  Avesta  as  we  have  it. — §  14.  The 
Bundehesh  :  its  lateness  and  its  contents. 

III. 
Aryan  Myths         ......         34-55 

§§  1,2.  Impossibility  of  invention  in  a  strict  sense. — §  3. 
Zarathushtra  not  an  inventor,  but  a  reformer. — §  4.  The 
Hindus  and  Eranians — sister  nations  of  the  Aryan  or  Indo- 
European  race. — §  5.  The  Airyana-Vaeja,  or  first  Aryan 
home  of  Eranian  tradition. — §  6.  The  Rig-Veda,  the  most 
ancient  sacred  book  of  the  Aryan  Hindus,  and  its  indica- 
tions concerning  the  religion  of  the  primitive  Aryas. — §  7. 
The  powers  of  nature — the  gods  of  the  Aryas. — §  8.  The 
Aryan  sky-gods,  Dyaus  and  Varuna. — §  9.  The  Aryan 
light-god,  Mitra. — §  10.  The  Aryan  fire-god,  Agni. — 
§  II.  Aryan-dualism.  Gods  and  demons,  light  and  dark- 
ness, rain  and  drought. — §  12.  Aryan  storm-myth.^ 
§  13.  Indra,  the  god  of  the  thunderbolt. — §  14.  Vritra  and 
Ahi,  the  cloud-fiends. — §§  15,  16.  Soma,  plant,  beverage 
and  drink. — 17,  18.  Efficacy  of  sacred  texts — Mantra — and 
of  sacrifice. — §  ig.  Crossness  of  some  of  these  concep- 
tions.— §  20.  Richness  of  Aryan  mythical  epos. — §  2i. 
King  Yama  and  the  Pitris. — §  22.  Aryan  reverence  toward 
the  spirits  of  the  departed — the  Pitris. — §  23.  The  Pitris 
pass  into  heroic  epos. 

IV. 

Aryan  Myths  in  the  Avesta — Thetr  Allegori- 
cal Transformation  .         .         .         56-94 

§  I.  Enervating  influence  of  the  Indian  climate  on  the 
Aryan  population. — §  2.  Bracing  and  hardening  influence  of 
the  soil  and  climate  of  Eran.  The  nature  of  Eran  all  in  ex- 
tremes.— §  3.  It  intensifies  the  feeling  of  dualism,  and  de- 
velops the  battle-myth  almost  exclusively. — §  4.  Spiritual 
transformation  of  Aryan  myths  in  Eran, — ^  5.  Ahura- 
Mazda,  the  supreme  God  and  Creator,  the  successor  of  the 


CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS.  V 

Arj'an  sky-gods. — §  6.  The  sacred  mountain  and  paradise 
of  the  Eranians. — §  7.  The  heavenly  sea,  the  celestial 
spring,  and  the  tree  of  life  and  immortality. — §  8.  An- 
thropomorism  subordinate  in  Eranian  myth. — §i^  9,  10. 
Mithra,  the  successor  of  the  Aryan  Mitra,  transparently 
mythical. — 11.  His  spiritual  transformation  :  the  god  of 
light  becomes  the  god  of  truth. — §  12.  His  allegorical  at- 
tendants :  Victory,  Obedience,  Uprightness,  etc. — §  13. 
Allegory  a  distinctive  feature  of  the  Eranian  mind. — g  14. 
The  Amesha-Spentas,  or  "  Bountiful  Immortals," and  their 
allegorical  character. — §  15.  The  seven  Amesha-Spentas 
and  their  functions. — §  16.  Ahura-Mazda  is  the  first  of  them 
and  has  created  the  others. — §  17.  Atar — Fire — successor  of 
the  Aryan  Agni. — §  18.  The  Hvareno,  or  "  Kingly  Glory," 
— §  19.  Tishtrya,  the  chief  of  stars  and  Eranian  storm -god. 
— §  20.  The  Fravashis,  the  successors  of  the  Aryan  Pitris. 
— §§  21,  22. — Desire  of  the  Eranian  gods  for  sacrifice. — 
§  23,  24.  The  Manthra,  or  sacred  text,  and  the  Ahuna- 
Vairya,  and  their  power  over  the  fiends. — §  25.  Angra- 
Mainyu,  or  the  "  Evil  One." — §  26.  Yima,  the  successor 
of  the  Aryan  Yama  ;  history  in  the  Avesta. — §  27.  The  fall 
of  Yima. — §  28.  The  Sagdid. 

V. 

The  Gath as — The  Yasn a  of  Seven  Chapters,  95-1 1 2 
§  I.  Mazdayasnians  and  Daevayasnians. — §  2.  Zarathush- 
tra's  work. — §  3.  Early  period  of  the  Gathas. — §  4.  The 
prophet's  denunciations  of  the  Daevayasnians,  or  Fiend- 
worshippers. — §  5.  The  Aryan,  "  Devas," — gods — trans- 
formed into  the  Eranian  "  Daevas  " — fiends.  "  Ahura  " 
and  "Asura." — §6.  Poetical  prologue  of  the  Gathas. — 
§  7.  Proclamation  of  the  new  religion. — §  8.  Essence  of 
Mazdeism  :  moral  dualism. — §  9.  The  hymn  of  questions. 
— §  10.  Simplicity  and  literalness  of  the  Gathas. — §  11,12. 
The  "  Yasna  of  Seven  Chapters."  Slight  deterioriation  in 
the  spirit  of  Mazdeism  ;  formation  and  return  to  myth. — 
§  13.  The  Mazdayasnian  "  Profession  of  Faith." — §  14. 
Marriages  between  near  relations. 


CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS. 


VI. 


Migrations  and  Foreign  Influences  —  The 
Vendidad  —  Heathen  Revival  —  The 
Khordeh  Avesta  ....  1 13-168 
§1.  Character  of  the  Vendidad. — §2.  The  three  fundamen- 
tal principles  of  the  priestly  legislation. — §  3.  Power  of  the 
priesthood. — §  4.  The  Athravans  and  Zoroastrian  sacrifice. 
§§  5,  6.  Holiness  of  an  agricultural  life. — §  7.  Care  of  the 
body  enjoined  ;  asceticism  denounced. — §§  8,  g.  Exposing 
of  the  dead. — §  10.  The  Dakhma. — §  11.  Questions  on 
purity  and  pollution. — §  12.  Impurity  of  the  Dakhmas.— 
§  13.  Treatment  of  corpses  in  winter. — §  14.  Sinfulness  of 
burying  a  corpse. — §  15.  Impure  creatures  become  clean  by 
dying. — §  16.  On  sickness. — §  17.  On  thriftiness. — §  18. 
The  Nasu,  or  corpse-fiend.  Rights  of  purification. — §  19. 
Dangerous  sinfulness  of  carrying  a  corpse  alone. — §  20.  On 
physicians. — §  21.  Sacredness  of  the  dog. — §  22.  Of  the 
cock. — §  23.  Signs  of  nomadic  life  in  the  Vendidad. — §  24. 
25.  Turanian  influences  encountered  by  the  Eranians  in 
their  westward  migration. — §§  26,  28.  Traces  of  these  in- 
fluences in  the  Avesta. — §  29.  Hebrew  affinities. — §§  30-31. 
Puzzling  penal  legislation. — §  32.  The  "  Khordeh-A vesta." 
Heathen  Revival. — §  33,  34.  The  Chinvat  Bridge,  and  the 
trials  of  the  soul  after  death. — §  35.  High  standard  and 
beauty  of  Mazdeism.     Its  high  place  among  religions. 

VII. 

The  Last  Days  of  Judah  .         .         .         169-185 

§  I.  Affairs  in  Syria. — 2.  Necho  II.  of  Egypt  plans  an  in- 
vasion of  Asia, — §  3.  His  campaign  in  Syria. — §  4.  Battle 
of  Megiddo,  and  defeat  of  Josiah  of  Judah. — §  5.  Battle  of 
Karkhemish  ;  defeat  of  Necho  by  Nebuchadrezzar. — §  6. 
The  Median  and  Babylonian  empires  — §  7.  Submission 
of  Syria. — §  8.  The  prophet  Jeremiah, — §  g.  First  taking 
of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadrezzar. — §  10-13.  Jeremiah's 
preaching  and  unpopularity. — §  14.  Destruction  of  Jerusa- 
lem.— §15,  16.   The  siege  of  Tyre.     Nebuchadrezzar. 


CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS.  VU 

VIII. 
Lydia  and  Asia  Minor — The  Balance  of  Power 

IN  THE  East      .....         186-222 

55§  1—3.  The  countries  of  Asia  Minor  independent  of  Baby- 
lon.— §§  4,  5.  Lydia.  Kandaules  and  Gyges. — §  6.  Rock- 
tombs  of  Lycia. — §  7.  Languages  of  Asia  Minor. — §  8. 
The  Hittite  element  in  Asia  Minor.  —  §  9.  Indo-European 
influences. — §  10.  Hellas,  the  Doric  migration  and  Ionian 
colonies. — §  ii.  Ionian  colonies  on  the  shore  of  Asia  Minor 
— §  12.  Mutual  influence  of  the  Greeks  and  Lydians. — 
§§  13,  14.  Invention  of  coinage  by  the  Lydians. — §  15. 
Aggrandizement  of  Lydia. — §  16.  Her  wars  against  the 
Greek  cities  on  the  sea-shore. — §  17.  War  between  Lydia 
and  Media. ^§  18.  Battle  of  the  Eclipse.  Peace  and  inter- 
marriages.— §  19.  Death  of  Kyaxares. 

IX. 

Babylon  the  Great — The  House  Egibi.         223-260 

§  I.  Little  durability  of  a  balance  of  powers. — §  2.  Nebu- 
chadrezzar's fear  of  Media. — His  works  of  fortification. — 
§  4.  The  Median  Wall. — §  5.  His  constructions  at  Baby- 
lon.— §  6.  The  great  walls. — §  7.  The  great  bridge  and 
the  embankments.  §  8.  The  new  palace. — §§  9,  10.  The 
Hanging  Gardens. — §  11.  The  temple  of  Bel-Marduk. — 
§  12.  Legends  of  Semiramis  and  Nitokris. — §  13.  Nebu- 
chadrezzar's greatness. — §  14.  Herodotus'  account  of  some 
Babylonian  customs. — §  15.  Discovery  of  the  banking 
house  of  Egibi. — §  16.  Long  duration  of  the  firm. — §  17. 
Their  archive  of  private  transactions. — §  18.  Their  business 
operations. — §  19.  Legal  transactions  in  property. — §§  20- 
22.  Tablets  of  legal  precedents. — §  23,  24.  Dignified  and 
independent  position  of  Babylonian  women. — §  25.  Private 
letters. — §  26.  Reading-books,  and  children's  exercise  books, 
§  27.   Late  use  of  cuneiform  writing  in  contract-tablets. 

X. 
Media  and  the  Rise  of  Persia         .         .         261-288 

§1.  Astyages  succeeds  Kyaxares.  His  insignificance. — §2. 
Splendor  of  Median    royalty. — §  3.   Columnar   architecture 


via  CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS. 

introduced  by  the  Medes. — §§  4,  5.  The  palace  at  Agbatana. 
§  5.  Uncertainty  concerning  the  Medes. — §  7.  The  Median 
tribes,  Aryan  and  un-Aryan. — §  8.  The  Magi — the  priest- 
hood of  Media. — §  g.  Their  probable  un-Aryan  origin. — 
§  10.  Their  political  power. — §  11.  The  Perbians.  Uncer- 
tainty about  their  origin. — §  12.  Persia  proper — its  climate 
and  productions.  Character  of  the  Persians. — §  13.  The 
Persian  tribes,  Aryan  and  un-Aryan.  Elam  and  Anshan. 
§  14.  Reunion  of  the  tribes  under  Akhsemenes.  Begin- 
nings of  the  Persian  nation. — §  15.  The  double  line  of  the 
Akhsemenian  house  ;  the  Anshan  line,  and  the  Persian  line. 
§  16.  The  newly  discovered  cylinders  of  Nabonidus  and 
Kyros. — §  17.  The  Rock  and  Inscription  of  Behistun. — 
§  18.  The  early  Akhnemenian  house  reconstructed  from 
these  documents. 

XI. 

KuRUSH,  THE  King,  the  AKHi^MENiAN      .         289-332 

§§  I,  2.  Fall  of  the  Median  Empire. — §§  3,  4.  Herodotus' 
fabulous  account  of  the  birth  and  childhood  of  Kyros. — §  5. 
Explanation  of  the  account. — §  6.  Probable  details. — §  7. 
Extension  of  the  Persian  Empire  in  the  East. — §  8.  Kyros' 
wise  rule.  Fusion  of  the  Medes  and  Persians. — §  9.  The 
ruins  of  Pasargadse,  Kyros'  royal  city  in  Persia. — §  10. 
Persian  art,  as  shown  in  the  monuments  at  Pasat^gadse,  imi- 
tated from  Assyrian  art. — §  11.  The  balance  of  powers 
threatened  by  Kyros. — §  12.  Alyattes  of  Lydia  succeeded 
by  Kroisos. — §  13.  Kroisos  prepares  to  make  war  against 
Kyros,  and  seeks  alliances. — §  14.  His  embassy  and  gifts 
to  the  Delphic  temple. — §  15.  Beginning  of  the  war. — §  16, 
17.  The  fall  of  Sardis  and  capture  of  Kroisos. — §  18.  At- 
tempted self-immolation  of  Kroisos.  His  rescue  from  the 
pyre. — §  19.  Subjection  of  the  Ionian  cities  and  the  rest  of 
Asia  Minor. — §  20.  First  and  unsuccessful  attack  on  Baby- 
lon. Complete  subjection  of  Elam.  Susa  one  of  the  capi- 
tals of  the  Persian  empire. — §  21.  The  successors  of 
Nebuchadrezzar  at  Babylon.  Accession  of  Nabonidus. — 
§  22.  He  indisposes  the  priesthood  of  Babylon.  First  and 
unsuccessful  attempt  of   Kyros. — §  23.    The  priesthood  call 


CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS.  IX 

in  Kyros. — §  24.  The  Jews  support  him. — §  25.  Surrender 
of  Babylon  and  triumphal  entry  of  Kyros. — §  26.  He  con- 
ciliates the  priests  and  delivers  the  Jews. — §  27.  Obscurity 
of  his  last  years,  and  death. 

Appendix  to  Chapter  XI.        ,         .         ,         333-343 

The  last  discoveries  at  Susa. 

XII. 

Kambyses.     529-522  B.C.     ....         344-360 

§  I.  Accession  of  Kambyses. — §  2.  His  unfortunate  nature 
and  jealousy  of  his  brother  Bardiya. — §  3.  He  plans  the 
conquest  of  Egypt. — §  4. — Preparations  on  both  sides. — §  5. 
Assassination  of  Bardiya. — §  6.  Battle  of  Pelusion  and  con- 
quest of  Egypt. — §  7. — Kambyses'  religious  tolerance  and 
mild  rule  in  Egypt. — §  8. — His  reluctance  to  return  and 
further  campaigns. — §  g.  Tidings  of  an  impostor  person- 
ating Bardiya,  and  of  a  general  revolt.  Kambyses  confesses 
his  crime  and  puts  an  end  to  his  life. — §  10.  Record  of  the 
event  in  the  Behistun  inscription. 

XIII. 

Dareios  I.,  THE  Son  of  Hystaspes.     522-485  B.C. 

First  Period  :  Civil  Wars     .         ,         361-383 

§  1-3.  Gaumata  the  Magian  slain  by  the  seven  Persian 
princes.  Accession  of  Dareios  I. — §  4.  The  Behistun  in- 
scription on  the  subject. — §  5.  Dareios  a  Mazdayasnian. — 
§  6.  The  Persians  not  strictly  followers  of  the  Vendidad. — 
§  7.  Breaking  out  of  the  civil  war. — §  8.  Revolt  of  nine 
provinces. — §  9.  Revolt  of  Media. — §  10.  Capture  of  the 
Median  pretender. — §  11.  End  of  the  civil  war. — §  12. 
Sculptures  at  Behistun. — §  13.   List  of  nations. 

XIV. 
Dareios  I.  Second  Period  :  Years  of  Peace,  384-411 

§  I.  Dareios' wise  home  rule. — §  2.  His  system  of  taxation. 
§  3.   Construction  of  roads,  and  institution  of  a  postal  ser- 


CLASSIFIED    CONTENTS. 

vice. — §  4.  The  Nile  canal  and  uniformity  of  coinage. — §  5. 
Susa  and  Persepolis. — §  6.  Great  platform  at  Persepolis. 
§  7.  Stairs  at  Persepolis. — §  8.  The  palace  of  Dareios. — 
§  9.  The  Hall  of  Hundred  Columns. — §  10.  The  audience- 
hall  at  Susa,  in  the  Book  of  Esther. — §11.  Buildings  of 
Xerxes  at  Persepolis. — §  12.  Conjectures  about  the  walls  of 
the  palaces. — §  13.   The  royal  tombs  at  Persepolis. 


XV. 

Dareios  I.     Third  Period  :  Foreign  Wars.  412-433 

§  I.  Dareios  begins  a  series  of  foreign  wars. — §  2.  The 
knowledge  of  the  Greeks  about  Scythia. — §§  3,  4.  Herodo- 
tus'description  of  Scythia. — §§  5,6.  Of  the  Scythians. — §  7. 
Dareios  bridges  and  crosses  the  Bosporus  and  the  Danube. 
— §§  ^'  9-  H!is  campaign  in  Scythia. — §  10.  His  retreat  and 
return  across  the  Danube  and  the  Hellespont. — §11.  Ex- 
peditions in  India  and  Africa.  Revolt  and  chastisement  of 
the  Greek  cities  in  Asia  and  Thracia.  Preparations  against 
Greece. 


Index 


435 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


ARCHER-FRIEZE        .....         Frontispiece 

A  PARSI  GENTLEMAN  (mODERn)            ....  6 

A  PARSI  LADY  (mODERn) 7 

page  of  the  avesta       ......  29 

parsi  in  praying  costume  .         .         .         -us 

"  paitidana  "  .         .         .         .         ,         .         -115 

"kosti" 115 

*' atesh-gah,"  or  "  fire-altar  "  of  modern  par- 
SIS                   ...                          ....  116 

"  ATESH-GAH,"  OR  ''  FIRE-ALTAR  "  ;    SEEN  BY  ANQUE- 

TIL  DUPERRON II7 

SACRIFICIAL  IMPLEMENTS  USED  IN  PARSI  WORSHIP  II9 

A  "dAKHMA,"  or  "tower  of  SILENCE  "             .            .  127 

ANCIENT  "  DAKHMA  "  NEAR  TEHERAN  IN    PERSIA       .  I2g 

VIEW  IN  AUDERBEIDJAN                 .....  143 

VIEW  IN  AUDERBEIDJAN 145 

ASSYRIAN  ALTAR        .......  I49 

RUIN  of  "  ATESH-GAH  "  AT  FIRUZABAD    .             .             •  ^Sl 

RESTORATION  OF  THE    SAME       .....  153 

LYCIAN  ROCK-TOMBS  AT  MYRA              ....  I90 

LYCIAN  ROCK-TOMB  AT  TELMESSUS                .            .            .  19I 

LYCIAN  ROCK-TOMB  AT  TELMESSUS                .            .            .  I92 

FACADE  OF  LYCIAN  ROCK-TOMB  AT  MYRA             .             .  I94 

ROCK-TOMB  AT  MYRA 1 95 

RELIEFS  ON  THE  SO-CALLED  ''  HARPY-TOWER  "              .  I97 


Xll 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


SEPULCHRAL  MONUMENT  AT   XANTHOS 

MODERN  CONSTRUCTIONS  IN  LYCIA 

GRANARY  IN  MODERN  LYCIA 

GRANARY  IN  MODERN   LYCIA 

ROCK-TOMB  OF  MIDAS 

CITY  WALL  OF  CNIDUS 

STATUE  OF  THE  ARTEMUS  OF  EPHESUS 

RUINS  OF  THE  TEMPLE  OF  DIDYM^EAN  APOLLO 

FRAGMENT  OF  ORNAMENT 

EARLY  AND  LATE  LYDIAN  COINS 

BRICK  OF  NEBUCHADREZZAR 

HANGING  GARDENS  OF    BABYLON 

MOUNTAIN  SCENERY  IN  MEDIA 

PERSIAN  AND  MEDIAN  FOOT-SOLDIERS 

ROCK  OF  BEHISTUN 

SCULPTURES    AND    INSCRIPTIONS   ON    THE    ROCK    OF 

BEHISTUN  .... 

GATE-PILLAR  OF  KYROS'  PALACE 
BAS-RELIEF  REPRESENTING  KYROS 
TOMB  OF  KYROS  AT  PASARGAD^ 
SUPPOSED  TOMB  OF  KAMBYSES  I. 
LION-FRIEZE,  IN  GLAZED  TILES,  AT  SUSA 
DESIGN  ON  archers'  ROBES       . 
BATTLEMENTED  STAIR  PARAPET 
ROYAL  SEAL  OF  THE  AKH.EMENIAN  KINGS 
WINGED  BULL  AT  PERSEPOLIS 

PERSIAN  PILLAR BASE  AND  CAPITAL 

DOUBLE  GRIFFIN  CAPITAL 
DOUBLE  BULL  CAPITAL       .  .  , 

RUINED  PALACE  AT  FIRUZABAD 
SASSANIAN    ROCK-SCULPTURES 
DAREIOS  I.   ON   HIS  THRONE 
TOMBS  OF  AKHi^MENIAN  KINGS 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


XUl 


DETAIL    OF    AKHjEMENIAN    TOMB 
BUILDING  KNOWN  AS  "  RUSTEM's  TOMB  " 
SASSANIAN  SCULPTURE 

SASSANIAN  KINGS 

MASONRY  OF  GREAT  PLATFORM  AT  PERSEPOLIS 

LION  ATTACKING  BULL 

PARAPET  OF  STAIR,  PERSEPOLIS 

CARVED  LINTEL  OF  WINDOWS  AND   DOORS 

PALACE  OF  DAREIOS  AT  PERSEPOLIS 

ATTEMPT    AT    RESTORATION    OF    SOUTH    FRONT    OF 

PALACE  OF  DAREIOS  AT  PERSEPOLIS 
DAREIOS  FIGHTING  A  MONSTER 
DOOR  OF  PALACE  OF  DAREIOS,  PERSEPOLIS 
PILLARS  OF  THE  HALL  OF  XERXES 
GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  PALACE  OF  DAREIOS 
SCYTHIANS  AFTER  A  BATTLE 
GREEK  SILVER  VASE,  FOUND  AT  KERTCH 


373 

375 
377 
Z9Z 
396 
397 
398 
399 

401 
403 

405 
407 

409 

421 

423 


1 

^ 

1 

B 

§ 

PRINCIPAL  WORKS  READ  OR  CONSULTED 

IN   THE    PREPARATION    OF    THIS 

VOLUME. 


Anquetil,  Duperron.  Zend-Avesta  :  Ouvrage  de  Zoroastre,  con- 
tenant  les  idees  theologiques,  physiques  et  morales  de  ce  legisla- 
teur,  les  ceremonies  du  culte  religieux  qu'il  a  etablies,  etc., 
etc.     2  vol.  in  4°.     Paris  1761. 

Ayuso,  Francisco  Garcia.  Los  Pueblos  Iranios  y  Zoroastro. 
Madrid,  1874.      i  vol. 

Babelon,  Ernest.  Histoire  Ancienne  de  l'Orient.  gme  ed. 
5th  and  6th  vol.  Paris,  1887  and  1888.  (Continued  from 
Lenormant.) 

Bartholom^,  Chr.  Arische  Forschungen.  II.  and  III.  Halle, 
1886  and  1887. 

Bradke,  p.  v.  Dyaus  Asura,  Ahura-Mazda  und  die  Asuras. 
Studien  und  Versuche  auf  dem  Gebiete  alt-indo-germanischer 
Religionsgeschichte.     Halle,  1885.     128  pages. 

Darmesteter,  James.  The  Zend  Avesta.  Part  I.,  The  Vendi- 
dad.  Part  II.,  The  Sirozahs,  Ya^ts,  and  Nyaij.  ("Sacred 
Books  of  the  East."  Series,  vol.  IV.  and  vol.  XXIII).  Oxford, 
1880  and  1883.     2  vols. 

Ormazd    et   Ahriman  :     Leurs    origines    et     leur   histoire. 

(Bibliotheque  de  1'  Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes  ;  age  Fascicule.) 
Paris,  1877.     I  vol. 
-Haurvatat    et   Ameretat  :    Essai  sur   la   mythologie   de 


I'Avesta.  (Bibliotheque  de  I'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes  ;  236 
Fascicule.)    Paris,  1875.     85  pages. 

Delaitre,  a.  Le  Peuple  et  l'  Empire  des  Medes,  jusqu'  a 
la  fin  du  regne  de  Cyaxare.     Bruxelles  :   1883.     i  vol. 

Dosabhai,  Framji  Karaka.  History  of  the  Parsis.  Including 
their  Manners,  Customs,  Religion  and  Present  Position.  Lon- 
don, 1884.     2  vol. 


xvi  PRINCIPAL   WORKS   CONSULTED. 

DuNCKER,    Max.       Geschichte  des  Alterthums.       5th  edition. 

I2th  and  4th  vol.      Leipzig,    1880. 
EvERS,  Dr.  E.      Das   Emporkommen   der   Persischen    Macht 

UNTER  Cyrus  :    nach  den  neuentdeckten  Inschriften.     Berlin, 

1884.     40  pages. 
Ferguson,  James.     Palaces  of  Nineveh  and   Persepolis   Re- 
stored.    London,  1851.     i  vol. 
Floigl,  Dr.  Victor.     Cyrus  und  Herodot  :  nach  den  neugefun- 

denen  Keilinschriften.     Leipzig,  1881.     197  pages. 
Harlez,  M.  C.  de.     Avesta  :  Livre  sacre  du  Zoroastrisme  traduit 

du    texte  Zend,   accompagne  de  notes  explicatives,  et  precede 

d'une  Introduction  a  I'etude    de    I'Avesta    et    de    la    Religion 

Mazdeenne  ;  2e  edition.     Paris,  1881.     i  vol. 
Les  Origines  du  Zoroastrisme.  (Extrait  du  Journal  Asiaf- 

ique.)    Paris,  1879.     Deux  parties  en  8". 
Haug,  Martin.     Essays  on  the  Sacred  Language,  Writings, 

AND  Religion  of  the  Parsis.     i  vol.     Second  edition. 

HOVELACQUE,    Abel.       L'AVESTA,     ZoROASTRE    et    LE    MAZDftsME, 

Paris,  1880.     I  vol. 
Le  Chien  DANS  l'Avesta.      Les  soins  qui  lui  sont  dus.     Son 

eloge.     Paris,  1876.    56  pages. 
Les  Medecins  et  la  Medecine  dans  l'Avesta.     21  pages. 


Jackson,  A.  V.  Williams.  A  Hymn  of  Zoroaster  Yasna 
XXXI.     Translated  with  comments,  62  pages  ;  Stuttgart,  1888. 

Justi,  Dr.  Ferdinand.  Geschichte  des  Alten  Persiens.  Ber- 
lin,   1879.     I  vol. 

Kuhn,  a.  Die  Herabkunft  des  Feuers  und  des  GOtter. 
trankes.     First  edition,     i  vol. 

I-enormant,  Fran9ois.  La  Monnaie  dans  l'Antiquite.  Vol. 
1st.     Paris,  1878. 

Les  Origines  de  l'Histoire,  d'apres  la  Bible  et  les  tradi- 
tions des  peuples  Orientaux.     2d  vol.     Paris,  1882. 

Maspero,  G.  Histoire  Ancienne  des  Peuples  de  l'Orient. 
3d  edition.     Paris,  1878. 

Menant,  Joachim.  Zoroastre  :  Essai  sur  la  Philosophic  Religi- 
euse  de  la  Perse,     2d  edition.     Paris,  1857.     i  vol. 

Meyer,  Eduard.  Geschichte  des  Alterthums.  Stuttgart,  1884. 
Vol.  ist. 

Mills,  L.  H.  The  Zend  Avesta:  Part  III.  The  Yasna,  Visparad, 
Afrinagan,  Gahs,  and  Miscellaneous  Fragments.  ("Sacred  Books 
of  the  East."     Series,  vol.  XXXI.)     Oxford,  1887.     I  vol. 


PRINCIPAL   WORKS   CONSULTED.  xvii 

MuLLER,    F.   Max.     Chips  from   a   German  Workshop.     New 

York,  1876.  4  vol. 
Lectures  on  the  Science  of   Language.      New  York, 

1875.     2  vol. 
Biographies  of  Words  and  the  Home  of  the  Aryas. 


London,  1888. 
Myer.     Remains  of  Lost  Empires,     i  vol. 
Oppert,  J.     Le  Peuple  et  la  Langue  des  Mi;DES. 

L'  HoNOVER  :  le  Verbe  Createur  de  Zoroastre.    (Extrait  des 

Annales  de  Philosophie  Chretienne,  Janvier,  1862.)    24  pages. 

Plutarch.     De  Iside  et  Osiride. 

Rawlinson,    George.     The   Five  Great   Monarchies  of  the 
Ancient  Eastern  World,     London,  1865.     3d  and  4th  vol. 

History  of  Herodotus,  a  new  English  version.     London, 

1875.     4  vol. 

Rialle,  Girard  de.     Agni,  Petit-fils  des  Eaux,  dans  le  Veda  et 

I'Avesta.     Paris,  1869.      16  pages. 
Sayce,  a.  H.     The  Ancient  Empires  of  the  East.     London, 

1884.     I  vol. 
Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  as 

illustrated  by  the  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Babylonians. 

Hibbert  Lectures,  1887.     I  vol. 
Schrader,    Eberhard.       Die    Keilinschriften   und   das   Alte 

Testament.     2d  edition.     Giessen,  1883.     i  vol. 
Spiegel,     Friedrich.      Eranische     Alterthumskunde.       3   vol. 

Leipzig,  1871,  1873,  and  1878. 

Die    Altpersischen    Keilinschriften.     2d    edit.     1881. 

Unger,  G.  Fr.    Kyaxares  und  Astyages.     (Aus  den  Abhandlungen 

der  kon.  Bayerischen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  I  CI.,  XVL 

Bd.,  Ill  Abth.)     Miinchen,  1882.     85  pages. 
Vaux,  W.  S.  W.     Persia,  from  the   Earliest  Period  to  the 

Arab  Conquest.     (Ancient    History    from    the    Monuments.) 

I  vol. 
Vigouroux,  Abbe  F.    La  Bible  et  les  Decouvertes  Modernes 

en  Palestine,  en  Egypte  et  en  Assyrie.     4th  edit.     Paris,  1884. 

4  vols. 
West,  E.   W.     Pahlavi    Texts.     Part  I.     The  Bundahij,   Bah- 

man  Yajt  and  Shayast  La-Shayast.    ("  Sacred  Books  of  the  East." 

Series,  Vol.  V.)     Oxford,  1880.      I  vol. 
Whitney,  Wm.   Dwight.      Oriental  and   Linguistic  Studies, 

New  York,  1873.     i  vol. 


XVI 11  PRINCIPAL   WORKS   CONSULTED. 

WiNDiscHMANN,  Friedrich.  Zoroastrische  Studien.  Abhand- 
lungen  zur  Mythologie  und  Sagengeschichte  des  alten  Iran. 
Berlin,  1863. 

MiTHRA  :    ein    Beitrag  zur    Mythengeschichte  des  Orients ; 

Leipzig,  1857.     89  pages. 

Numerous  works  on  Ancient  India  and  Comparative  Mythology  ; 
also  pamphlets  and  essays  by  Sir  H.  C.  Rawlinson,  Th.  G. 
Pinches,  W.  St.  Chad  Boscawen,  H.  Rassam,  De  Harlez, 
Spiegel,  Hovelacque,  Halevy,  Girard  de  Rialle,  E.  Dieulafoy, 
and  others,  in  Rawlinson's  "  Herodotus,"  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  and  various  periodicals,  such  as  "Transactions" 
and  "Proceedings"  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology,  the 
"  Journal  "  of  the  Victoria  Institute,  the  "  Museon,"  the  "  Baby- 
lonian and  Oriental  Record,"  the  "  Revue  Archeologique," 
"  Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts,"  and  others. 

This  volume  will  surely — and  deservedly — be  found  fault  with  by 
critics  on  the  score  of  inconsistent  spelling  of  Oriental  and  Greek 
names.  It  is  a  defect  very  difficult  to  avoid  in  the  present  transition 
stage  between  the  spelling  sanctioned  by  old  habit,  though  utterly 
incorrect  and  misleading,  and  the  more  faithful  and  rational  trans- 
literation which  a  finer  scholarship  is  rapidly  introducing.  The 
author  is  fully  conscious  of  this  shortcoming,  which,  however,  shall 
be  thoroughly  eliminated  in  a  final  revised  edition  of  the  entire  work. 

Z.  A.  R. 


PRINCIPAL  DATES  GIVEN  IN  THIS 
VOLUME. 


Battle  of  Megiddo  (Defeat  of  Josiah  of  Judah  by 

Necho  II.  of  Egypt) 6og  B.C. 

Battle  of  Karkhemish  (Defeat  of   Necho  II.  by 

Nebuchadrezzar  of  Babylon) 605     ' ' 

First  Taking  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadrezzar   .      597     " 

Destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  Beginning  of  Cap- 
tivity       586     " 

Battle  of  the  Eclipse  (between  Alyattes  of  Lydia 

AND    KYAXARES    of    MeDIA) 585       " 

Death  of  Kyaxares 584  " 

Death  of  Nebuchadrezzar 561  ' 

Fall  of  the  Median  Empire  (Astyages,  son  of 
Kyaxares,  Dethroned  by  Kyros,  King  of  An- 

shan  and  Persia) 549  " 

Conquest  of  Lydia  by  Kyros 546  " 

Conquest  of  Babylon  by  Kyros  and  End  of  Jew- 
ish Captivity 539  " 

Death  of  Kyros  the  Great 529  " 

Kambyses,  son  of  Kyros 529-522  " 

Battle  of  Pelusion  and  Conquest  of  Egypt     .     .  525  " 

Dareios  I.,  SON  OF  Hystaspes 522-485  " 

(522-515,  Civil  Wars  ;  515-508,  Years  of  Peace  ; 
508-485,  Foreign  Wars). 

Battle  of  Marathon 490  ' 


THE    STORY  OF    MEDIA,   BABYLON, 
AND  PERSIA. 


I. 


A  NOTABLE   RELIGIOUS   SURVIVAL  :     THE   PARSIS. — 
ANQUETIL   DUPERRON. 

I.  Among  the  so-called  heathen  religions  which 
still  claim  for  their  own  more  than  one  half  of  man- 
kind, there  is  none  of  greater  interest  and  impor- 
tance than  that  of  the  Parsis,  more  generally  known 
under  the  graphic  but  misleading  name  of  "  Fire- 
Worshippers."  It  is  certainly  not  from  their  num- 
bers this  sect  derive  that  interest  and  importance, 
for  in  that  respect  they  form  an  almost  imperceptible 
unit  in  the  general  sum.  The  entire  number  of 
Parsis  now  living  scarcely,  if  at  all,  exceeds  100,000, 
which  represents  about  one  in  fourteen  thousand  of 
the  earth's  population.  But,  small  as  that  frag- 
ment of  humanity  is,  it  is  a  chip  from  one  of  the 
world's  noblest  and  mightiest  nations,  the  PERSIANS 
of  old,  a  nation  which,  though  not  extinct,  and  still 
counted  as  one  of  the  greater  political  powers  of  the 
East,  has  degenerated  beyond  recognition  under  the 


2  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

influence  of  foreign  conquest,  enforced  change  of  re- 
ligion, and  mixture  of  races.  And  the  religion  which 
these  exiled  descendants  of  the  ancient  Persians 
have  preserved  along  with  purity  of  race  and  time- 
honored  customs,  is  that  of  ancient  Eran,  the  old  and 
widely  spread  faith,  the  prophet  of  which,  Spitama 
Zarathushtra,  was  vaguely  known  and  reverenced 
by  the  writers  of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  as 
well  as  by  the  later  scholars  of  Europe,  under  the 
name  of  ZOROASTER. 

2.  It  is  customary  to  sweep  under  the  head 
"  Heathen  Religions "  all  except  the  three  great 
Semitic  religions:  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Islam- 
ism,  or  the  religion  of  Mohammed.  It  is  doubtful 
how  far  so  comprehensive  a  designation  may  be  cor- 
rect in  individual  instances.  In  that  of  the  Parsis, 
at  least,  it  appears  decidedly  rash,  since  they  earnest- 
ly, emphatically  profess  the  worship  of  the  one  true 
God,  and  a  horror  of  any  kind  of  polytheism — a  form 
of  belief  which,  surely,  should  win  them  a  place 
among  monotheists,  as  must  be  shown  by  a  brief  re- 
view of  their  religious  tenets  and  practices. 

3.  It  was  in  the  year  641  A.D.  that  the  Arab  in- 
vaders, in  the  heyday  of  their  fervor  for  the  faith  of 
which  their  prophet  Mohammed  had  taught  them  to 
consider  themselves  the  heaven-sent  bearers,  won  the 
battle,  (on  the  field  of  Nehavend,  fifty  miles  from 
ancient  Ecbatana),  which  changed  the  destinies  of 
Eran,  and  turned  its  people,  dreaded  and  victorious 
for  four  centuries  under  their  last  national  kings,  the 
SasSANIAN  dynasty,  into  a  conquered,  enslaved,  and 
for  a  long  time  ruthlessly  oppressed   and   ill-treated 


A   NOTABLE  J^ELIGIOUS  SURVIVAL.  3 

population.  Yezdegerd  III.,  the  last  Sassanian 
king,  was  murdered  on  his  flight,  for  plunder,  and  no 
effort  was  made  to  retrieve  the  lost  fortunes  of  that 
terrible  day,  with  which  closed  an  heroic  struggle  of 
over  eight  years  ;  the  country's  energies  were  broken. 
4.  It  was  but  natural  that  the  religion  of  the  van- 
quished should  be  the  first  object  of  persecution  at 
the  hands  of  victors  whose  wars  and  conquests  were 
all  prompted  by  religious  fanaticism.  The  Persian 
clergy  were  persecuted,  their  temples  desecrated 
and  destroyed,  their  sacred  books  likewise,  and  the 
faithful  followers  of  the  ancient  national  creed  sub- 
jected to  so  many  indignities  and  extortions  as  to 
make  existence  not  only  burdensome,  but  wellnigh 
impossible.  They  were  made  to  pay  ruinous  extra 
taxes,  were  excluded  from  all  offices,  frojrn  all  par- 
ticipation in  public  life,  and,  worst  of  all,  very  nearly 
deprived  of  the  protection  of  the  law,  at  all  events 
systematically  denied  justice  or  redress  whenever 
they  applied  for  either  against  a  Mussulman.  Their 
property,  their  lives,  their  honor,  thus  were  com- 
pletely at  the  mercy  of  the  insolent  and  grasping 
foreign  rulers.  From  so  many  and  unbearable  ills, 
the  only  escape  lay  in  embracing  the  faith  of  these 
rulers,  doing  homage  to  Mohammed,  and  abjuring 
all  their  own  traditions,  beliefs,  and  practices.  By 
this  one  act  they  could  step  at  once  from  the  state 
of  down-trodden  slaves  to  a  condition  if  not  of 
equality  with  their  masters,  at  least  of  well-protected 
subjects.  It  is  no  wonder  that  apostasy  became 
rife  in  the  land.  Compulsory  conversion,  however, 
is   scarcely  likely  to   be  sincere,  and  we  may  take  it 


4  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

for  granted  that  the  first  generations  of  new-made 
Mussulmans  were  so  only  in  self-defence  and  in  outer 
form.  Not  so  their  descendants.  Habit  and  asso- 
ciations gradually  endeared  to  them  the  faith  in 
which,  unlike  their  fathers,  they  were  born  and  bred, 
and  at  the  present  moment  there  are  no  more  zeal- 
ous followers  of  the  Arab  prophet  than  the  Persians. 
5.  But  even  at  the  time  of  the  wholesale  con- 
version of  the  country  to  Islamism,  which  was  an 
accomplished  fact  in  less  than  two  hundred  years 
after  the  conquest,  great  numbers  preferred  every 
hardship  to  apostasy.  Only,  as  life  under  such  con- 
ditions had  become  unendurable  at  home,  the  vast 
majority  of  these  took  the  desperate  resolution  of 
going  into  exile,  to  seek  some  place  of  refuge  in 
foreign  lands,  where  they  would  be  tolerated  as 
harmless  guests,  and  suffered  to  practise  their  re- 
ligion unmolested.  A  small  remnant  only  stayed, 
lacking  the  courage  to  sever  all  old  ties  and  go  forth 
into  absolute  uncertainty,  and  of  this  remnant  the 
fate  was  most  pitiful.  ''  In  the  tenth  century  of  the 
Christian  era,"  says  a  distinguished  modern  Parsi 
writer,*  "  remnants  of  the  Zoroastrian  population 
were  to  be  found  only  in  the  provinces  of  Fars  and 
Kerman  ;  and  the  reader  will  have  an  idea  of  the  rate 
at  which  that  remnant  has  declined  even  in  recent 
times,  when  it  is  stated  that,  while  about  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  it  numbered  one  hundred  thou- 
sand souls,  it  does  not  at  present  exceed  seven  or 
eight  thousand." 

*  Dosabhai  Framji  Karaka,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Parsis,"  Lon- 
don, 1884. 


A    NOTABLE  RELIGIOUS  SURVLVAL.  5 

6.  The  self-exiled  Zoroastrians  fared  better.  After 
wandering  for  many  years  somewhat  at  random,  stop- 
ping at  various  places,  but  not  attempting  any  per- 
manent settlement  until  they  effected  a  descent  on 
the  western  coast  of  India,  they  reached  at  last  the 
peninsula  of  GujERAT  (or  Guzerat),  where  they 
were  hospitably  received  by  the  reigning  Hindu 
prince,  after  they  had  agreed  to  some  by  no  means 
onerous  conditions  :  they  were  to  lay  down  their 
arms,  to  give  an  account  of  the  religion  they  pro- 
fessed, to  adopt  the  language  of  the  country,  to 
conform  to  some  of  its  customs.  From  this  time 
forth  and  through  several  centuries  the  Zoroastrian 
exiles,  who  now  began  to  be  called  Parsis,  prospered 
greatly.  Deprived  of  arms,  and  with  no  call  to  use 
them  had  they  retained  them,  they  settled  into  the 
thrifty,  intelligent,  industrious  ways  which  charac- 
terize them  at  the  present  day.  Agriculture  and 
commerce  became  their  favorite  pursuits,  and  as 
they  were  in  no  way  repressed  or  restrained,  they 
began  to  spread  even  as  far  as  Upper  India  (the 
Penjab).  Then,  about  1300  A.D.,  they  were  once 
more  driven  forth  homeless,  by  a  Mussulman  in- 
vasion, which  ended  in  the  conquest  of  Gujerat. 
This  time,  however,  they  did  not  stray  far,  but 
betook  themselves  to  Navsari  and  SOrat  near 
the  coast,  where  they  came  in  contact  with  Euro- 
peans, to  the  great  furtherance  of  their  commercial 
interests.  It  was  undoubtedly  this  new  commer- 
cial intercourse  which  drew  them  southwards,  to 
the  great  centre  of  the  western  coast,  the  city  of 
Bombay,  where    we    find    them    as   early  as    about 


MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 


1650  A.D.,  just  before  the  transfer  of  the  city  and 
territory  from  the  Portuguese  to  the  EngHsh  crown. 
The  Presidency  of  Bombay  with  its  capital  has  since 
become  the  head-quarters  of  the  Parsis,  whose  num- 
bers in  this  part  of  the  country  and  the  whole  of 
India  amount  to  something  over  85,500. 

7.  It  has  always  been  known  in 
Europe  that  the  Parsis,  or  Gebers, 
["infidels,"  as  the  Mussulmans  con- 
temptuously call  them),  followed  a 
religion  of  which  the  most  peculiar 
and  striking  outer  feature  was  the 
honor  paid  to  fire;  that  they  had 
sacred  fires  kept  burning  always  in 
chapels,  and  that  when  they  moved 
from  place  to  place  they  car- 
ried these  fires  with  them.  It 
was,  naturally  enough,  in- 
-ferred  that  Fire  was  their 
deity,  their  god ;  and  the 
name  of  "  Fire-Worshippers  " 
was  universally  bestowed  on 
them.  Only  a  scholarly  few 
had  a  deeper  and  more  cor- 
rect perception  of  what  was 
to  the  mass  an  absurd  super- 
stition, and  knew  that  the  Parsis  did  not  worship  fire 
as  a  deity,  but  admired  and  honored  it  as  the  pure- 
est  and  most  perfect  emblem  of  the  Deity.*     They 

*  The  Parsi  writer  quoted  above,  in  vindicating  his  brethren  from 
the  charge  of  heathenism,  very  aptly  cites  the  words  of  Bishop  Meu- 
rin,  the  head  of  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Bombay  :  "  A  pure  and  un- 


i.  a  parsi  gentleman 
(modern). 


A    NOTABLE  RELIGIOUS   SURVIVAL. 


also  knew  that  the  Parsis  believe  in  a  number  of 
spiritual  beings  who  take  care  of  the  world  under 
the  orders  and  supervision  of  the  Creator,  in  six 
spirits  more  exalted  still  and  partaking  in  their 
essence  of  some  of  the  Divine  qualities,  also  in 
the  existence  and  power  of  sainted  souls,  and  that  they 
invoke  all  these  beings  in  prayer 
somewhat  as  the  Roman  and  Orien- 
tal churches  do  angels,  archangels, 
and  saints.  Lastly,  scholars  knew 
that  the  Parsis  professed  to  follow 
strictly  and  undeviatingly  the  law  of 
Zoroaster,  as  it  was  handed 
down  from  their  ancestors  be- 
fore the  conquest,  the  Per- 
sians of  the  Sassanian  period, 
who  were,  in  their  turn,  said 
to  have  received  it  from  re- 
mote antiquity.  Now  these 
assertions  are  strongly  con- 
firmed by  a  great  many  pas- 
sages from  Greek  and  Roman 
writers     of     various      times, 

whose  accounts  (fragmentary  ~^^— 

as  they  are)  of  the  beliefs  2-  a  parsi  lady  (modern). 
and  religious  practices  of  the  Persians  as  they 
knew  them  in  their  time,  agree  remarkably  with 
the  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  modern  Parsis. 
The  name  of  Zoroaster,  too,  is  mentioned  by  many 
classical  authors,  vaguely,  it  is  true,  and  with  many 

defiled  flame  is  certainly  the  most  sublime  natural  representation  of 
Him  who  is  in  Himself  Eternal  Light." 


8  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND    PERSIA. 

contradictions,  but  always  with  reverence,  as  one 
coupled  with  much  holiness  and  mystery.  It  was, 
therefore,  generally  understood  among  the  learned : 
1st.  That  the  Parsis  must  possess  sacred  books  of 
great  antiquity,  containing  and  expounding  the  laws 
of  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  remarkable  religions 
in  the  world  ;*2d.  That  it  would  be  extremely  desira- 
ble, in  the  interests  of  historical  and  religious  re- 
search, to  gain  access  to  these  books,  and,  if  possi- 
ble, to  secure  copies  of  them  for  the  great  European 
libraries. 

8.  Both  these  points  were  partially  settled  by  the 
happy  chance  which,  in  the  beginning  of  the  last 
century,  put  an  English  traveller  and  scholar, 
George  BouRCHIER,  in  possession  of  a  manu- 
script, which  he  obtained  from  Parsi  priests  dur- 
ing a  visit  to  Surat.  It  contained  the  VendidAd 
Sadeh,  i.  c,  a  compilation  of  prayers  and  hymns,  in 
the  order  in  which  they  are  recited  at  religious  ser- 
vices, and  was  deposited  at  Oxford.  More  manu- 
scripts followed,  until  towards  the  middle  of  the 
century  that  great  university  owned  a  nearly  com- 
plete collection.  But  what  was  the  use,  when  there 
was  no  one  to  read  them?  The  very  characters 
were  unknown,  and  there  seemed  but  little  prospect 
that  the  puzzle  should  ever  be  solved. 

9.  Fortunately  four  pages  traced  from  one  of  the 
Oxford  manuscripts  found  their  way  to  Paris,  and 
there  happened  to  meet  the  eye  of  a  young  Oriental 
student,  Anquetil  DuperroN.  Ambitious,  eager- 
minded,  and  scarcely  twenty-two,  he  saw  in  this  a 
hint  of  fate,  a  great  work,  worthy  of  all  his  energies 


A    NOTABLE  RELIGIOUS   SURVIVAL.  9 

and  enthusiasm,  given  into  his  hand  ;  in  short,  that 
most  desirable  of  boons — an  object  in  hfe.  "  I  at 
once  resolved  to  endow  my  country  with  this  pecul- 
iar piece  of  literature,"  he  says.  "  I  dared  to  form 
the  design  of  translating  it,  and  determined  to  go  to 
the  East  with  that  object  in  view,  and  learn  the  an- 
cient Persian  language  in  Gujerat  or  Kerman."  Be- 
longing to  a  noble  family,  he  could  command  the 
influence  of  high-placed  friends,  and  might,  in  time, 
have  obtained  an  appointment  at  one  of  the  count- 
ing-houses of  the  French  East-India  Company.  But 
such  a  roundabout  way  and  its  inevitable  delays  ill- 
suited  with  his  youthful  impatience,  and,  taking 
counsel  of  no  one,  he  committed  the  reckless  step 
of  engaging  as  a  private  in  the  service  of  the  Com- 
pany, which  was  sending  out  a  batch  of  recruits,  just 
to  secure  an  immediate  passage.  Only  when  all  the 
arrangements  were  completed  did  he  inform  his  elder 
brother  of  what  he  had  done,  and,  unmoved  by  his 
dismay  and  tearful  entreaties,  marched  out  with  his 
company  one  raw  November  morning  of    the  year 

1754- 

10.  Enterprising  and  brave  to  foolhardiness  as 
Anquetil  was,  from  temperament,  from  national 
bent,  and  from  the  buoyancy  which  belongs  to  ex- 
treme youth,  it  is  .just  possible  that  he  might  not 
have  embarked  in  such  blind  wise  on  his  adventur- 
ous errand,  had  he  quite  known  the  number  and. the 
nature  of  the  hardships  which  he  was  rushing  to 
meet,  even  though  they  were  greatly  mitigated  for 
him  by  the  exertions  of  his  friends,  who  obtained 
from   the   government   his   discharge   from   military 


lO  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND  PERSIA. 

service,  a  small  pension,  and  pron:iise  of  further 
assistance  even  before  he  left  his  native  soil.  The 
good  news  reached  him  at  L'Orient,  the  seaport 
from  which  the  recruits  were  to  be  shipped,  and 
he  stepped  on  board  the  vessel  in  February,  1755,  a 
free  man.  It  was  well  for  him  that  it  fell  out  so  ;  for  as 
we  read  his  account  of  the  voyage  and  of  the  share 
of  suffering  which  fell  to  him  as  one  of  the  ofTficers* 
mess,  we  ask  ourselves  with  a  shudder  what  would 
have  been  his  fate  had  he  been  counted  among  the 
wretched  rabble  of  vagabonds,  criminals,  and  scamps 
of  every  description,  the  scum  of  prisons  and  regi- 
ments, which  made  up  the  Company's  soldiery,  and 
were  housed,  fed,  and  generally  treated  accordingly, 
on  a  six  months'  voyage,  mostly  on  tropical  seas. 

II.  Nothing  can  be  more  entertaining  and  in- 
structive, at  times  more  fascinating  and  thrilling, 
than  Anquetil's  own  detailed  narrative  of  his  long 
wanderings  and  manifold  adventures.  The  book  is 
but  little  read  nowadays.  We  accept  the  results  of 
a  great  man's  self-devotion,  and  care  little  to  recall 
at  what  cost  those  results  were  obtained.  Yet  there 
are  surely  some  good  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  the 
career  of  men  whom  we  see  giving  up  home,  friends, 
prospects  in  life,  for  the  sake  of  knowledge,  pursuing 
this,  to  the  great  mass  of  men,  most  unsubstantial 
of  goods,  at  the  risk  of  life  and  health,  grudging 
neither  time  nor  money,  or,  far  more  frequently  still, 
working  for  it  without  any  money,  by  sheer  personal 
exertion  and  perseverance,  in  the  face  of  appalling 
privation  and  hardships,  and  considering  themselves 
repaid  beyond  any  wealth  if  they  succeed  in  securing 


A    NO 7^ ABLE  RELIGIOUS  SURVIVAL.  II 

even  but  a  portion  of  the  knowledge  they  sought. 
Such  men  there  have  always  been  ;  such  men  there 
are  now,  many  of  them.  They  work,  they  succeed, 
they  suffer, — they  die,  too,  more  of  them  than  the 
world  knows  of,  victims  of  their  enthusiasm  and 
self-devotion  ;  witness  George  Smith,*  witness  the 
two  Lenormants,  father  and  son,  Charles  and  Fran- 
cois, and  so  many  others,  all  smitten  in  harness  by 
cruel  diseases  contracted  in  distant  and  uncongenial 
climes,  at  their  noble  tasks.  Anquetil  Duperron  was 
emphatically  one  of  the  heroic  band.  Few  suffered 
as  many  and  varied  ills,  and  if  he  lived  to  achieve 
and  enjoy,  it  was  solely  owing  to  an  exceptionally 
vigorous  constitution. 

12.  He  was  absent  seven  years.  But  there  was  no 
time  lost.  When  he  re-entered  Paris,  early  in  1762, 
he  was  barely  thirty.  The  most  arduous  and  adven- 
turous part  of  his  task  lay  behind  him,  successfully 
achieved,  and  before  him — the  best  years  of  his 
manhood,  to  be  devoted  to  comparatively  easy  and 
certainly  pleasant  work: — that  of  translating  the 
several  books  which  formed  the  body  of  Parsi  Scrip- 
ture, and  became  generally,  though  incorrectly, 
known  under  the  name  of  Zend-Avesta.  This 
translation,  accompanied  by  a  detailed  narrative  of 
his  varied  wanderings  and  experiences,  was  laid  be- 
fore the  public  as  early  as  1771,  in  three  quarto  vol- 
umes bearing  the  lengthy  but  exhaustive  title : 
"  Zend-Avesta,  the  Work  of  Zoroaster — Contain- 
ing the  Theological,  Physical,  atid  Moral  Ideas  of  that 
Lawgiver,  the  Ceremonies  of  the  Religions  Worship  Es- 

*   See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  102-105. 


12  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA, 

tablishcdby  Jnin,  and  Several  Import  ant  Traits  Bearing 
on  the  Ancient  History  of  the  Persians^  The  manu- 
scripts from  which  he  worked  had  already  be-en  de- 
posited in  the  Royal  Library.  He  had  therefore 
fully  redeemed  the  vow  to  which  he  pledged  himself 
seventeen  years  before  on  first  beholding  the  puz- 
zling pot-hooks  on  the  Oxford  tracing,  and  now 
waited  anxiously  and  with  natural  curiosity  to  see 
the  impression  which  his  labors  would  produce  on 
the  scholarly  world  of  Europe. 

13.  Here  he  was  doomed  to  an  unlooked-for  and 
disheartening  experience.  True,  there  was  here  and 
there  a  little  burst  of  enthusiasm,  but  the  large  ma- 
jority of  scholars  held  aloof,  uncertain  and  bewil- 
dered, while  the  English  scholars,  partly  moved 
thereto  by  personal  feeling  against  the  author,  who 
had  been  guilty  of  some  very  ill-tempered  and  un- 
warrantable attacks  on  the  University  of  Oxford, 
took  a  decided  hostile  stand.  Their  spokesman  was 
William  Jones,  then  a  very  young  man,  but  al- 
ready distinguished  as  a  linguist  and  Orientalist, 
who  published  in  French  an  anonymous  ^'  Letter  to 

Mr.  A- du   P "   in  the   form  of  a  pamphlet. 

Though  so  abusive  as  to  be  decidedly  in  bad  taste, 
it  was  very  clever,  and  the  French  was  so  perfect 
that  it  was  some  time  before  the  nationality  of  the 
writer  was  suspected.  Jones  simply  accused  the 
elder  scholar  of  forgery,  or  else  of  a  credulity  pass- 
ing all  reasonable  bounds.  He  objected  that  the 
WTitings,  presented  to  the  world  as  the  works  of  one 
of  the  greatest  thinkers  of  all  ages,  half  the  time — 
to  use  a  homely  expression, — "  didn't   make  sense," 


A   NOTABLE  RELIGIOUS  SURVIVAL.  1 3 

and  when  they  did,  were  insufferably  stupid  and 
prosy.  "  Though  the  whole  college  of  Gebers  were 
to  assert  it,"  he  says,  "  we  should  never  believe  that 
even  the  least  clever  of  charlatans  could  have  writ- 
ten the  nonsense  with  which  your  two  last  volumes 
arc  filled.  ,  .  .  Either  Zoroaster  was  devoid  of 
common-sense,  or  he  did  not  write  the  book  you  at- 
tribute to  him.  If  the  first,  you  should  have  left 
him  to  obscurity  ;  if  he  did  not  write  the  book,  it 
was  impudent  to  publish  it  under  his  name.  You 
have  then  either  insulted  the  public  by  offering  them 
worthless  stuff,  or  cheated  them  by  palming  off  false- 
hoods on  them,  and  in  both  cases  you  deserve  their 
contempt."  On  this  theme  the  changes  were  rung 
for  years  with  little  variety  and  less  good-breeding. 
"  The  least  reason  I  shall  offer  "  (for  rejecting  the 
authenticity  of  the  book)  "  is  the  uncommon  stu- 
pidity of  the  work  itself,"  is  the  verdict  of  another 
English  scholar. 

14.  Time  and  more  advanced  scholarship  have 
vindicated  the  memory  of  Anquetil  Duperron. 
They  have  long  ago  assigned  to  him  his  true  place, 
established  the  great  and  real  worth  of  the  work  he 
did,  and  also  its  shortcomings.  For  though  it  would 
enter  nobody's  head  nowadays  to  deny  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  books  he  undertook  to  translate,  his 
rendering  of  them  is  so  faulty,  carried  out  on  such 
altogether  wrong  principles,  as  to  be  utterly  un- 
available—the monument  at  once  of  a  great  achieve- 
ment and  a  great  failure.  He  had  neither  the  right 
method  nor  the  right  tools.  He  trusted  entirely  to 
his  instructors,  the  Parsi  Desturs,  or  high-priests,  and 


14  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND  PERSIA. 

their  word-for-word  translations  into  modern  Persian, 
never  dreaming  how  unreliable  their  knowledge  was. 
He  was  aware,  indeed,  that  the  mass  of  the  Parsis 
hear  and  recite  their  sacred  texts  parrot-wise,  without 
understanding  or  deeming  it  needful  to  understand 
a  single  word  of  them,  satisfied  with  scrupulously 
performing  the  ceremonies  and  rites  of  the  worship 
they  were  taught.  But  he  was  told  that  on  their 
higher  clergy  rested  the  obligation  to  study  the 
ancient  dead  languages  of  their  race,  so  as  to  hand 
down  from  generation  to  generation  the  sense  and 
spirit  of  their  religious  law  as  well  as  its  outer  forms. 
How  could  he  suspect  that,  in  carrying  the  vessel, 
they  had  spilt  most  of  the  contents,  and  that  their 
main-stay  was  a  thread  of  tradition,  continuous,  in- 
deed, but  growing  more  and  more  corrupt  and 
unreliable?  So  he  wrote  down  every  word  in  mod- 
ern Persian,  as  his  Desturs  gave  it,  then  rendered 
that  literally  into  French,  and — to  do  his  opponents 
justice — half  the  time  it  did  7iot  "  make  sense." 

15.  Thus  it  seemed  as  though  one  puzzle  had  only 
been  exchanged  for  another,  scarcely  less  hopeless. 
A  great  and  clear  mind  w^s  needed  to  disentangle  it 
and  carry  on  the  work  which  had  been  dropped  from 
sheer  inability  to  grasp  it.  Such  a  mind  turned  up 
only  sixty  years  later,  in  the  person  of  another  French 
Orientalist,  EUGENE  BURNOUF.  He  thought  he 
saw  his  way  to  a  more  correct  understanding  of  the 
Parsi  sacred  books,  by  means  of  a  more  rational  and 
exhaustive  method,  and  although  the  experiment 
really  lay  outside  of  his  special  line  of  studies,  he 
undertook  it,  more  to  open  the  road  for  others  and 


A   NOTABLE  RELIGIOUS  SURVIVAL.  1 5 

"  show  them  how,"  than  with  a  viev/  to  follow  it  to 
the  end  himself.  True,  he  brought  to  the  task  a 
tool  which  Anquetil  had  lacked — a  perfect  knowl- 
edge of  Sanskrit,  the  most  ancient  surviving  language 
of  the  Aryans  of  India  and  the  sister  tongue  of  that 
in  which  the  so  called  Zoroastrian  books  were  origi- 
nally written.  Curiously  enough,  this  tool,  which  was 
the  means  of  establishing  Anquetil's  claim  to  honor 
and  recognition,  even  while  exposing  his  shortcom- 
ings, was  in  a  measure  supplied  by  his  bitter  foe  and 
detractor,  Sir  William  Jones;  for  it  was  this  great 
scholar  who,  being  called  to  India  to  fill  a  high  offi- 
cial position,  first  took  up  the  study  of  the  classical 
language  of  ancient  India  himself,  and  inspired  his 
fellow-workers  and  subordinates  with  the  same  en- 
thusiasm, earning  for  himself  the  title  of  founder  of 
those  Sanskrit  studies  which  were  to  become  so 
principal  a  branch  of  the  then  dawning  science  of 
Comparative  Philology.  The  great  likeness  which 
was  discovered  between  the  ancient  languages  of  the 
Aryans  of  India  and  of  Eran  suggested  to  Burnouf 
that  by  bringing  to  bear  Sanskrit  scholarship  on  the 
Eranian  texts,  the  traditional  but  mostly  unint^i- 
gent  rendering  of  the  Parsi  Desturs  might  be  con-^^ 
trolled  and  corrected,  and  a  closer  comprehension  of 
their  Scriptures  attained  than  they  could  at  all 
achieve.  One  chapter  was  all  he  worked  out  accord- 
ing to  this  plan.  But  on  what  scale  and  with  what 
thoroughness  the  research  was  conducted,  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  it  fills  a  quarto  volume  of  eight  hun- 
dred pages.* 

*  "  Commentaire  sur  le  Yafna,"  published  in  1S33-35. 


l6  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

16.  All  the  work  that  has  since  been  done  on  this 
field  was  carried  out  aIon<j  the  lines  laid  down  in  this 
first  attempt  of  Burnouf's — a  monumental  treasury 
of  erudition  and  ingenuity.  But  the  matter  in  hand 
is  singularly  arduous  and  obscure,  and  although  pa- 
tient scholarship  has  indeed  succeeded  in  restoring 
the  lost  religion  attributed  to  Zoroaster  in  its  main 
features  and  general  spirit,  in  tracing  the  various  ele- 
ments which  entered  into  its  progressive  develop- 
ment, yet  many  and  many  are  the  points  still  under 
dispute,  the  passages — sometimes  most  important 
ones — of  which  we  have  several  conflicting  versions, 
among  which  even  the  trained  specialist  finds  it  im- 
possible to  make  a  decisive  choice.  In  many  ways 
there  is  less  uncertainty  even  about  cuneiform  de- 
cipherment. Still  much  is  done  every  year,  and  even 
as  matters  stand  now,  we  know  enough  to  warrant 
us  in  pronouncing  the  religion  so  almost  miracu- 
lously preserved  by  a  handful  of  followers  one  of 
the  finest,  wisest,  loftiest  the  world  has  seen.  As 
it  was  the  religion  of  the  race  which,  in  the  order  of 
history,  takes  the  lead  at  the  point  to  which  our 
studies  have  brought  us,  we  shall  pause  to  gain 
some  knowledge  of  it,  and  thus  be  prepared  to  fol- 
low that  race's  doings  more  understandingly  and 
appreciatively. 


II. 

THE  PROPHET  OF  ERAN — THE  AVESTA. 

I.  The  religions  of  the  world,  apart  from  their 
intrinsic  differences,  may  be  divided  into  two  great 
classes :  those  that  have  sacred  books,  and  those 
that  have  not.  The  sacred  books  of  a  religion  em- 
body all  its  teachings  in  matters  of  faith,  theology, 
and  conduct.  They  tell  its  followers  what  they 
should  believe,  what  they  should  do  and  avoid  doing, 
how  they  should  pray,  worship,  conduct  themselves 
on  the  momentous  occasions  of  human  life.  All 
these  instructions  the  faithful  are  not  to  take  as 
simply  advice  for  their  general  guidance,  but  as  ab- 
solutely binding,  to  be  believed  without  discussion, 
to  be  obeyed  without  demurring.  When  any  ques- 
tion arises  bearing  on  religious  doctrine  in  any  way, 
the  devout  believer  ought  not  to  use  his  own  judg- 
ment, but  to  refer  to  his  Sacred  Book,  or  to  its  privi- 
leged interpreters,  the  priests.  This,  indeed,  is  the 
most  commendable  and  the  safer  course,  as  the  lay- 
man is  liable  to  mistakes  from  imperfect  training 
and  incomplete  knowledge ;  while  the  priest  must 
perforce  understand  what  he  devotes  his  life  to 
study.  A  doubt  as  to  the  absolute  truth  of  any 
statement,  or  as  to  the  necessity  or  righteousness  of 


1 8  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

any  prescription  contained  in  the  Sacred  Book  is 
mortal  sin,  entailing  punishment  in  the  next  world, 
and,  if  expressed  in  acts  of  insubordination,  here  on 
earth,  at  the  hands  of  the  priests  and  the  government 
which  supports  them. 

2.  Such  utter  surrender  of  man's  most  cherished 
rights — the  right  of  thought  and  independent  action, 
—such  unreasoning  obedience,  amounting  almost  to 
the  abolition  of  individual  will  and  intellect,  could 
never  be  demanded  or  obtained  by  mere  men,  either 
the  wisest  or  the  most  despotic.  Man  will  obey  his 
fellow-man  from  choice,  and  as  long  as  he  thinks  it 
to  his  own  advantage  to  do  so,  but  never  admit  that 
such  obedience  is  a  paramount  and  indisputable 
duty.  Every  religion,  therefore,  that  has  sacred 
books,  claims  for  them  a  superhuman  origin:  they 
are  the  Divine  Word  and  the  Divine  Law,  revealed 
supernaturally,  imparted  directly  by  the  Deity 
through  the  medium  of  some  chosen  man  or  men, 
who  become  the  prophets,  teachers,  and  lawgivers 
of  their  people,  but  speak  not  from  themselves,  but 
in  the  name  and,  as  it  were,  under  the  dictation  of 
the  Deity,  with  whom  they  are  supposed  to  have 
miraculous,  face-to-face  intercourse.  In  remote  an- 
tiquity men  w^ere  more  simple-minded  than  they  are 
now,  and,  being  devoid  of  all  positive  (/.  e.,  scientific) 
knowledge,  found  no  difficulty  in  believing  wonders. 
Knowing  nothing  of  the  laws  of  nature,  deviations 
from  those  laws  would  not  startle  them  in  the  same 
way  that  they  do  us,  but  would  strike  them  at  most 
as  extraordinary  occurrences,  fraught  with  some 
portentous  significance.     They  were  the  more  will- 


THE   PROPHET   OE  ERAN.  I9 

ing  to  admit  the  divine  origin  claimed  for  the  Law 
offered  to  them,  that  the  best  of  every  rehgion, 
being  ghmpses  of  eternal  truths,  opened  by  the 
noblest  and  wisest  thinkers  of  a  race,  has  always 
been  so  far  above  the  average  standard  of  the  times 
as  to  appear  to  the  mass  unattainable  by  the  unas- 
sisted efforts  of  the  human  mind.* 

3.  The  two  great  Asiatic  divisions  of  the  Aryan 
stock  or  race,  the  Hindus  and  the  Eranians,  both 
followed  religions  which,  their  priests  taught  them, 
were  revealed  to  the  founders  directly  and  personally 
by  the  Deity.  The  Hindus  treasured  a  set  of  books, 
which  they  called  "  Veda  "  (/.  e.,  "  Knowledge  "),  as 
the  repository  of  the  Divine  Law,  while  the  Sacred 
Book  of  the  Eranians  has  long  been  known  under 
the  name  of  "  Zend-Avesta."  Neither  of  these  re- 
ligions is  extinct.  The  former  is  still  professed,  in  a 
much  altered  form,  by  many  millions  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  India,  while  the  latter  has  survived,  as  we 
saw,  in  that  handful  of  descendants  of  Persian  emi- 
grants which  forms  the  Parsi  community  in  India, 
and  the  daily  dwindling  remnant  of  their  brethren 
in  the  old  country.  Between  both  there  are  striking 
resemblances  and  not  less  striking  differences,  as  is 
usually  the  case  between  members  of  one  family,  be 
they  individuals  or  nations.  But  we  are,  in  this  vol- 
ume, directly  concerned  only  with  the  race  which, 
at  the  point  we  have  reached,  the  ever-revolving 
wheel  of  history  is  bringing  up  to  the  top,  to  gather 
the  inheritance  of  older  nations  whose  greatness  is 
of  the  past — Assyria,  Babylon,  and  others,  lesser  in 
size,  power,  and  influence. 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  259,  260. 


20  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

4.  When,  on  the  authority  of  Anquetil  Duperron 
and  his  first  successors  in  the  field  of  Eranian  re- 
search, the  title  "  Zend-Avesta "  was  universally 
accepted,  and  "  Zend  "  given  as  the  name  of  the 
language  in  which  the  newly  found  books  were 
written,  a  misnomer  was  unconsciously  introduced 
which  considerably  delayed  discoveries  and  added 
confusion  to  an  already  almost  hopelessly  obscure 
subject.  In  the  first  place,  the  title,  a  compound 
one,  should  be  "  Avesta-U-Zend,"  which  may  be 
pretty  fairly  translated  "  the  Law  and  Commentary," 
for  "  Zend  "  is  not  the  name  of  a  language  at  all,  but 
a  word,  which  means  "  explanation,  commentary." 
In  the  second  place,  the  books  are  not  written  in  one 
uniform  language,  but  in  several  Eranian  dialects  of 
different  periods  and,  probably,  different  countries. 
Now  that  these  facts  are  distinctly  understood,  it  is 
becoming  more  and  more  usual  to  call  the  books 
themselves  simply  "  AVESTA,"  and  the  language  of 
the  original  texts  "  AvESTAN,"— a  name  which  does 
not  commit  to  any  particular  time  or  country, — 
while  the  language  in  which  the  Zend  or  com- 
mentary and  glosses  are  written,  and  which  is  of  far 
later  date,  as  can  easily  be  proved  from  inscriptions, 
has  been  named  "  Pehlevi  " — the  Persian  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

5.  Pehlevi  is  a  most  peculiar  language,  especially 
in  its  written  form.  Not  so  much  from  the  differ- 
ence of  the  characters,  which  is  not  greater  than  the 
distance  of  several  centuries  would  naturally  war- 
rant ;  but  at  first  sight  it  does  not  seem  to  be 
Persian  at  all,  but  rather  Semitic.     That  is,  an  enor- 


THE    PROPHET   OF  ERAN.  21 

mous  proportion  of  the  words — nouns,  pronouns, 
verbs,  adverbs,  prepositions,  conjunctions — are  Se- 
mitic, while  the  grammar  and  construction,  i.  e.,  the 
way  of  using  and  arranging  those  words,  arc  Eranian 
— a  proceeding  so  anomalous  as  to  make  it  certain 
that  the  result  could  not  possibly  ever  have  been  the 
living  language  of  any  nation  whatever.  The  solu- 
tion of  the  riddle  seems  scarcely  less  strange.  It  is 
this  :  that  the  words  which  were  Semitic  to  the  eye 
were  Eranian  in  sound  ;  or,  to  put  it  more  clearly, 
the  reader,  in  reading  to  himself  or  aloud,  substituted 
to  each  Semitic  word  its  Eranian  (or  Persian)  equiv- 
alent. Thus  :  "  king  "  would  be  written  "  vialkd  " 
(an  old  Semitic  word),  and  pronounced  "  Shah  "  ; 
"  Malkan  malka,"  "  King  of  Kings,"  became  "  Shahan- 
Shah  "  ;  '^gosJit  "  (meat)  was  substituted  in  reading 
to  its  Semitic  equivalent  "  bisrd,^'  which  was  the 
written  word.  We  ourselves  do  something  of  the 
same  kind,  on  a  very  small  scale,  when,  on  meeting, 
in  print  or  writing,  forms  like  "  i.  £.,"  "  e.  g."  "  etc." 
which  stand  for  the  Latin,  "  id  est,"  "  exempli  gratia  " 
"  et  cetera"  we  fluently  read  the  English  words, 
"  that  is,"  "  for  instance,"  "  and  so  forth,"  not  to  speak 
of  the  numeral  figures  (i,  2,  3,  etc.),  which  every 
language  pronounces  in  its  own  way.  To  indulge  in 
the  exercise  on  such  a  scale  as  did  the  readers  and 
writers  of  Pehlevi-Persian  implies  a  knowledge  of 
two  languages,  which  is  rather  surprising,  and  would 
alone  go  far  towards  proving  the  indebtedness  of 
the  younger  race  of  Central  Asia  to  the  ancient  cul- 
tures of  the  West.  For  where  and  in  what  way,  if 
not   by  constant   contact  with  old    Semitic  nations, 


22  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

like  those  of  Nineveh,  of  Babylon,  of  Aram,  could 
the  Persians  have  acquired  such  familiarity  with  a 
language  than  which  none  could  be  more  difTerent 
from  the  Eranian  speech,  as  to  keep  writing  in  that 
language  and  translating  it  into  their  own  as  they 
read  ? 

6.  The  written  Pehlevi  language,  therefore,  is 
composed  of  two  very  distinct  elements,  which  have 
also  been  distinguished  by  different  names.  That 
part  of  it  which  is  written  one  way  and  read  another 
has  been  called  HuzvARESH,  while  the  purely  Per- 
sian part  goes  under  the  name  of  PAzEND.  It  is 
clear  that  it  is  quite  possible  for  a  text  to  be  written 
entirely  in  Huzvaresh  or  entirely  in  Pazend,  but 
neither  is  usually  the  case.  Only  it  has  been 
remarked  that,  the  older  the  text,  the  more  Huzva- 
resh it  contains,  so  that  it  may  be  said  that  the  most 
ancient  Sassanian  writings  are  nearly  all  Huzvaresh, 
while  the  latest  are  almost  entirely  in  Pazend. 

7.  From  what  has  been  said  it  is  evident  that  the 
books  which  we  know  under  the  general  name  of 
"  Avesta  "  are  composed  of  parts  belonging  to  very 
different  ages.  As  the  Pehlevi  characters  differ  from 
the  Avestan  ones,  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  sepa- 
rate the  original  text  from  the  Zend,  and  to  assign 
to  the  latter  its  proper  time,  which  is  the  period  of 
the  Sassanian  dynasty  (226-640  A.D.).  Beyond  that, 
every  thing  is  doubt  and  darkness.  It  is  just  the 
most  interesting  and  important  questions  to  which 
we  have  no  satisfactory  answers.  We  should  like  to 
know  :  How  old  is  the  religion  of  which  the  written 
law   has  in  great  part  just  been  recovered?     From 


THE   PROPHET  OF  ERAN.  23 

which  of  the  countries  of  Eran  did  it  go  forth  ?  Was 
there  really  a  man  of  the  name  of  Zarathushtra,  who 
invented  and  preached  it,  and  when  did  he  live  ? 
And  did  he  invent  it,  or  only  reform  it  and  put  it 
into  shape  ?  When  were  the  texts  containing  the 
doctrine,  the  prayer,  and  the  law,  written  down  ? 
All  these  points  have  now  for  years  been  the  subject 
of  researches,  which  have  arrived  at  conclusions 
in  a  great  measure  conflicting,  and  which  their 
authors  themselves  do  not  attempt  to  give  out  as 
final.  It  is  not  for  a  book  like  the  present,  meant 
essentially  for  general  readers,  to  enter  into  the  de- 
tails and  merits  of  special  controversies.  It  can  only 
present,  in  the  briefest  and  clearest  possible  form, 
such  results  as  are  certain  and  such  as  appear  most 
probable,  most  likely  to  be  confirmed  in  the  course 
of  further  study,  as  being  supported  by  the  greatest 
amount  of  intrinsic  and  circumstantial  evidence. 

8.  Most  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  whose 
works,  or  fragments  of  them,  have  come  down  to  us, 
speak  of  Zoroaster  as  of  a  wise  man  of  the  East  and 
teacher  of  divine  things,  and  also  magic,  whose  ex- 
istence it  occurred  to  no  one  to  doubt.  True,  their 
testimony,  taken  separately,  would  not  go  for  much, 
as  neither  of  these  nations  was  remarkable  for  great 
historical  sense  or  critical  discernment, — and  besides, 
they  place  him  at  absurdly  varying  periods,  ranging 
all  the  way  between  6,000  and  500  B.C.  But  the 
unanimity  of  the  testimony  establishes  a  strong  pre- 
sumption in  favor  of  the  real  existence  of  such  a 
person,  at  some  time,  as  yet  not  to  be  determined, 
although  so   much  can  be  said  with  certainty  even 


24  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

now,  that  both  the  above  extreme  dates  are  equally 
preposterous,  the  one  for  its  remoteness,  the  other 
for  its  lateness.  More  conclusive,  however,  is  the 
intrinsic  testimony  we  derive  from  the  Avesta  itself. 
9.  There  is  a  small  collection  of  hymns  called 
Gathas  (literally  "  Songs "),  written  in  a  peculiar 
Eranian  dialect,  either  older  than  the  Avestan  gen- 
erally, or  belonging  to  a  different  part  of  Eran. 
They  are  in  verse,  and  bear  the  marks  of  far  greater 
antiquity  than  any  other  portion  of  the  book.  They 
evidently  present  the  teachings  of  a  new  religion  in 
its  earliest  and  purest  stage,  and,  among  sermons, 
prayers,  sayings,  loosely  strung  together  in  no  par- 
ticular order,  contain  some  of  the  very  few  pieces  of 
real  poetical  beauty  which  the  Avesta  can  boast. 
In  these  "  Songs  "  the  prophet  stands  forth  with  an 
unmistakable,  living  reality.  Sometimes  he  preaches 
in  his  own  person,  expounding  to  a  concourse  of 
hearers  the  simple  and  broad  principles  of  his  creed; 
sometimes  he  cries  out  to  his  God,  as  a  persecuted 
and  homeless  wanderer  among  men,  with  a  pathos 
that  strongly  recalls  some  of  the  Hebrew  Psalms: 
"To  what  land  shall  I  turn?  Whither  shall  I  go  ? 
.  .  .  None  of  the  servants  pay  reverence  to  me,  nor 
do  the  wicked  rulers  of  the  country.  How  shall  I 
worship  Thee  further,  O  Ahuramazda?  I  know  that 
I  am  helpless  .  .  .  for  I  have  few  men.  I  implore 
Thee  weeping,  O  Ahura,  who  grantest  happiness  as  a 
friend  gives  a  present  to  his  friend.  .  .  ."  At  other 
times  he  speaks  hopefully;  for  he  has  found  friends: 
a  great  king  has  been  moved  to  believe  in  the 
prophet  and  his  mission,  his  first  disciples  are  among 


THE   PROPHET   OF  ERAN.  2$ 

the  royal  famih-  and  the  mighty  nobles  of  the  land  ; 
the  queen  herself  is  his  devoted  follower.  Then,  again, 
his  disciples  seem  to  be  speaking,  for  he  is  mentioned 
in  the  third  person.  But  throughout  this  precious 
collection,  the  grand  figure  stands  out  most  real, 
most  human,  appealing  to  the  noblest,  tenderest 
human  sympathies,  and  making  you  feel  sure  that 
Zarathushtra  has  once  been  a  living  man,  and  not  an 
empty  name. 

lo.  But  when  our  curiosity  prompts  us  to  inquire 
for  details,  for  biographical  facts,  materials  fail  us 
entirely.  The  Avesta  tells  us  the  name  of  his  father 
and  of  his  family  or  clan — Spitama  ;  also  those  of 
his  wives,  his  sons,  and  his  daughter,  but  beyond 
that  nothing  definite.  Still  keeping  strictly  to  the 
Avestan  text,  we  find  that  he  was  born  by  a  great 
water,  probably  a  river,  in  a  wooded  and  mountain- 
ous country,  and  a  "  mountain  of  holy  communings  " 
is  mentioned — surely  a  lofty  forest  retreat,  where  he 
spent  a  portion  of  his  life — perhaps  a  large  portion 
of  it, — meditating  and  lifting  his  soul  higher  and 
higher,  until  he  felt  himself  face  to  face  with  the 
Deity,  and  came  down  and  went  forth  to  teach  his 
people,  fully  believing  that  he  spoke  not  out  of  him- 
self, but  from  what  it  had  been  given  him  to  hear, 
in  answer  to  his  own  seeking  and  questioning  of 
spirit.  For  solitude,  amidst  grand  natural  surround- 
ings, is  a  great  breeder  of  thought  and  visions.  Mo- 
hammed had  been  for  years  a  driver  of  camels  and  a 
leader  of  caravans,  conning  the  mighty,  silent  lessons 
of  the  desert  and  the  stars,  before  he  announced 
himself  a  seer  and  a  prophet,  and  he  was  forty  then. 


26  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

For  years,  too,  had  Moses  lived  the  herdsman's  life 
in  the  wilds  of  stony  Sinai  before  he  returned  to  his 
people,  old  in  years  and  in  heavenly  lore,  and  told 
his  mission  and  worked  it  out.  Let  us,  then,  be 
content  with  such  vague  glimpses  of  the  Eranian 
sage  in  his  human  truth,  without  heeding  the  flimsy 
finery  of  signs  and  wonders  with  which  the  puerile 
fancy  of  later  ages  and  the  injudicious  zeal  of  fol- 
lowers tricked  out  the  reverend  and  majestic  image. 
II.  Wc  further  know  from  the  Avesta  that  the 
king  who  honored  Zarathushtra  and  believed  in  him 
was  ViSHTASPA,  famous  in  legendary  tradition  as 
one  of  the  early  hero-kings  of  Eran.  But  it  is 
scarcely  admissible  that  the  whole  of  Eran  should 
have  been  united  under  one  ruler  in  pre-historic 
times.  So  Vishtaspa  will  have  to  be  imagined  as 
king  of  some  one  Eranian  country,  almost  certainly 
in  the  northeastern  region,  very  possibly  Bactria, 
which  was  early  a  prosperous  and  powerful  kingdom, 
the  capital  of  which  is  called  "  the  beautiful  Bakhdhi, 
with  high-lifted  banners," — a  designation  evidently 
implying  some  great  distinction,  probably  a  royal 
residence.  Whether  Zarathushtra  was  a  born  sub- 
ject of  Vishtaspa,  or  was  a  native  of  some  other  part 
of  Eran  and  only  came  thither  to  preach,  is  uncer- 
tain. Tradition,  however,  makes  him  of  royal  race, 
and  has  preserved  a  long  genealogy,  which  shows 
him  to  be  descended  from  one  of  the  very  oldest 
legendary  kings.  As  to  the  time  when  king  and 
prophet  lived,  it  is  likely  that  no  positive  date  will 
ever  be  reached,  and  all  we  can  with  great  proba- 
bility conjecture,  is  that  it  should  be  placed  some- 


THE   PROPHET   OF  ERAN.  2/ 

where  beyond  looo  B.C.  This  date,  so  easily  acces- 
sible as  to  be  comparatively  modern  in  Chaldea  and 
Assyria,  is  so  remote  as  to  be  virtually  pre-historic  in 
a  land  entirely  devoid  of  monuments,  and  where  we 
have  no  grounds  for  even  suppositions  as  to  the  time 
when  writing  was  introduced. 

12.  This  latter  fact  sufficiently  shows  how  impos- 
sible it  is  to  ascertain  with  any  degree  of  precision  at 
what  period  the  Avesta  texts — as  well  the  Gathas  as 
the  later  ones — were  written  down.  No  manuscripts 
now  extant  are  really  ancient.  According  to  Parsi 
tradition,  there  once  was  a  large  body  of  sacred 
books,  all  indiscriminately  and,  beyond  doubt,  erro- 
neously, attributed  to  the  prophet  himself.  This  so- 
called  Zoroastrian  literature  is  said  to  have  consisted 
of  twenty-one  books,  written  out  on  twelve  thousand 
cowhides,  (parchment),  embracing  every  possible 
branch  of  religious  discipline,  philosophy,  and  sci- 
ence, but  to  have  been  destroyed  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest  of  Persia  by  the  Greeks  under  Alexander 
the  Great  of  Macedon,  three  centuries  before  Christ. 
No  Greek  ever  persecuted  any  religion;  but  as  it  is 
well  known  that  Alexander,  in  a  fit  of  drunken  exal- 
tation after  a  feast,  burned  down  Persepolis,  the 
capital  of  the  vanquished  Persian  kings,  it  is,  of 
course,  quite  possible  that  manuscripts  may  have 
perished  in  the  conflagration.  That  an  extensive 
sacred  literature  did  exist  at  the  time  is  partly  con- 
firmed by  the  testimony  of  a  contemporary  Greek 
writer,  (Hermippos),  who  is  recorded  to  have  cata- 
logued the  Zoroastrian  books,  and  to  have  stated  the 
contents  of  each  book.     After  the  great  fire  we  are 


7tB  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PEA'S/A. 

told  that  sacred  tradition  and  law  survived  only  in  the 
memories  of  the  priests  for  several  centuries  until,  in 
the  Sassanian  period,  a  council  of  priests  was  convoked 
for  the  express  purpose  of  restoring  and  committing 
to  writing  the  ancient  texts,  and  the  result  is  the 
Avesta  text  as  we  now  see  it,  incomplete,  fragmen- 
tary, confused  in  the  arrangement  and  order  of 
chapters  and  even  verses.  The  ancient  language 
had  fallen  into  disuse  as  early  as  Alexander's  time, 
wherefore  it  was  found  necessary  to  provide  transla- 
tions and  commentaries  in  the  then  modern  Persian 
— Pehlevi.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
clergy,  seeing,  from  the  disposition  of  the  new  reign- 
ing house,  that  their  day  of  power  had  come,  remod- 
elled many  of  the  texts  in  a  way  favorable  to  their 
own  overweening  claims,  nor  could  they  fail  to  add 
or  fabricate  some  to  suit  their  purposes  and  establish 
their  rule.  Persia  now  became  what  it  never  had 
been — priest-ridden,  and  an  era  of  fanaticism  to  the 
length  of  persecution  was  inaugurated  by  the  procla- 
mation of  King  Shapiir  II. :  "  Now  that  we  have 
recognized  the  law  of  the  world  here  below,  they 
shall  not  allow  the  infidelity  of  any  one  whatever, 
and  I  shall  strive  that  it  may  be  so." 

13.  It  stands  to  reason  that,  of  a  large  mass  of  re- 
ligious literature  entrusted  to  the  memories  of  that 
religion's  ministers,  only  such  portions  will  be  pre- 
served in  tolerable  entirety  and  uncorruptedness  as 
arc  in  daily  use  for  purposes  of  worship  and  observ- 
ance. Such  exactly  was  the  case  with  the  Avesta. 
The  portions  that  have  come  down  to  us  are  collec- 
tions of  prayers  and  invocations,  which  the  faithful 


3.  PAGE  OF  THE  AVESTA,  FROM  THE  OLDEST  MANUSCRIPT  (WRITTEN 
1325  A.D.),  PRESERVED  IN  KOPENHAGEN.  (ABOUT  HALF  THE 
ORIGINAL    SIZE.) 


29 


30  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

are  to  recite  daily,  in  a  certain  order, — the  service  or 
liturgy  proper ; — also  of  hymns  of  praise  to  various 
divine  beings  whom  the  modern  Parsis  regard  as  sub- 
ordinate angels  or  good  spirits,  which  hymns,  as  well 
as  some  short  prayers  and  fragments,  are  grouped 
under  the  title  of  Lesser  Avesta  (Khordeh  Avesta), 
as  being  of  less  vital  importance,  and  to  be  recited 
only  once  a  month  and  on  certain  occasions.  The 
principal  divisions  of  the  Avesta  as  it  has  stood 
since  the  text  was  definitively  established  and  sanc- 
tioned under  the  Sassanian  king,  Shapur  II.  (about 
325  A.D.),  are  as  follows  : 

I.  The  Vendidad,  corrupted  from  a  much  longer 
word  which  means  "  the  law  against  the  Devas " 
(/.  r.,  the  Demons).  It  is,  properly,  a  code  of  laws 
and  regulations  tending  towards  the  establishment 
of  righteousness  and  the  defeat  of  the  Powers  of 
'Evil,  but  includes  some  interesting  mythical  legends, 
traditions,  and  digressions  of  various  sorts. 

II.  The  VisPERED  :  invocations  to  all  the  divine 
and  holy  beings,  who  arc  honored  under  the  title  of 
"  Chiefs  of  the  Good  Creation,"  and  invited  to  assist 
at  the  sacrifice  that  is  preparing — very  much  in  the 
form  of  a  litany. 

III.  The  Yasna,  "  Sacrifice,"  i.  c,  the  prayers  and 
text — Manthras — which  are  to  accompany  the  very 
minute  and  complicated  performances  that  compose 
the  sacrifice,  in  presence  of  the  sacred  fire,  to  which 
are  presented  offerings  of  meat,  milk,  bread,  and 
fruit,  in  small  quantities,  and  the  juice  of  a  certain 
plant,  the  Haoma,  which  is  pressed  out  on  the  altar 
itself  with  many  strictly  prescribed  ceremonies.    The 


THE   PROPHET  OF  ERAN.  3 1 

Gathas  are  comprised  in  the  Yasna,  for  no  particular 
reason  that  one  can  see,  and  form  twenty-five  chap- 
ters of  it.  It  also  contains  forms  of  confession,  in- 
vocations, praise,  exhortations,  etc.  These  three 
divisions,  Vendidad,  Vispered,  Yasna  are  not  re- 
cited separately,  but  intermingled,  as  suits  the  prog- 
ress of  the  liturgy.  When  written  out  in  this 
particular  liturgical  order  they  form  the  Vendidad- 
Sadeh. 

IV.  The  Yeshts,  hymns  of  praise,  containing 
much  interesting  mythical  matter,  indeed  distin- 
guished altogether  by  a  polytheistic  and  mythologi- 
cal character  entirely  foreign  to  the  early  stages  of 
Zarathushtra's  religion,  and  clearly  showing  a  far 
later  and  greatly  corrupted  period.  These  Yeshts, 
together  with  a  few  fragments,  short  prayers  for 
each  day  of  the  month  and  others,  form  the  Khor- 
deh  or  Lesser  Avesta,  perhaps  held  somewhat  less 
holy  than  the  other  three  books,  as  not  being  in 
liturgical  use  at  daily  worship.  It  is  to  be  noted 
that,  for  the  same  reasons,  very  few  of  the  Yeshts 
have  been  translated  into  Pehlevi,  so  that  scholars, 
in  reading  and  rendering  them,  have  the  additional 
difficulty  of  being  entirely  unassisted  by  tradition. 

14.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  brief  review  of  its 
contents,  that  we  would  vainly  look  in  the  Avesta 
for  the  cosmogonical  legends  which  usually  form  a 
part  of  a  nation's  sacred  lore,  and  which  we  find  in 
such  abundance  and  richness  in  the  sacred  records 
of  the  Chaldeo-Assyrians  and  the  Hebrews.  Such  a 
blank  in  our  knowledge  of  so  great  a  race  as  that  of 
Eran  would  be  an  irreparable  loss.     Fortunately  it  is 


32  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

in  a  great  measure  filled  from  sources  which,  if  com- 
paratively modern,  are  not  devoid  of  authority,  since 
they  are  beyond  a  doubt  supplied  from  ancient  tra- 
ditions ;  these  sources  are  various  books  composing 
a  voluminous  Pehlevi  literature,  and  all  belonging  to 
the  Sassanian  period,  but  certainly  containing  much 
of  the  material  of  which  the  lost  books  of  the  old 
Avestan  literature  were  made  up,  even  though  mod- 
ernized and  greatly  transformed  by  ages  of  oral 
transmission  and  altered  conditions  of  culture.  Chief 
and  foremost  among  these  late  growths  of  an  ancient 
and  much  grafted  stem  is  the  BUNDEHESH,  an  inval- 
uable collection  of  mythical  and  religious  narratives, 
about  the  beginning  of  things,  and  also  the  end 
and  regeneration  of  the  world,  the  order  that  rules 
the  universe,  chapters  of  a  fanciful  geography  and 
astronomy  clearly  betraying  the  same  mythical 
origin,  scraps  of  national  heroic  epos,  and  even 
philosophical  digressions.  All  these  rather  hetero- 
geneous elements  are  worked  into  a  system  with  a 
symmetry  which  detracts  from  the  genuine  worth  of 
this  compilation  by  giving  it  a  too  obviously  arti- 
ficial character.  Where  every  thing  is  smoothed 
and  ordered  and  fashioned  to  fit,  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  original  material  is  marred  in  the  handling. 
Still,  if  the  handling  be  modern,  the  material  as  cer- 
tainly is  old,  as  is,  moreover,  abundantly  proved  by 
various  hints  in  the  Avesta  itself,  which  become  in- 
telligible by  the  light  of  the  Bundehesh.  This  is 
why,  although  this  book  by  its  date  is  far  removed 
from  the  time  which  the  present  volume  is  meant  to 
cover  (nearly  a  thousand  years  later  than  the  latest 


THE   PROPHET  OF  ERAN.  33 

date  it  will  reach),  we  could  not,  without  referring  to 
it,  attempt  an  intelligent  and  intelligible  sketch  of 
that  ancient  religion,  the  moral  and  philosophical 
sides  of  which  are  mainly  represented  in  the  surviv- 
ing books  of  the  Avesta. 

As  to  the  capital  question  :  whether  the  prophet 
who  preached  that  religion  to  Eran  was  the  inventor 
of  it  or  only  a  reformer,  it  is  of  a  bearing  too  vast,  of 
import  too  profound,  not  to  claim  a  separate  chapter. 


III. 


ARYAN    MYTPIS. 


1.  In  the  first  place,  no  religion  is  ever  invented 
any  more  than  a  language.  The  many  and  great 
varieties  of  both  are  accounted  for  by  growth  and 
transformation,  in  every  case  where  searching  inves- 
tigation is  brought  to  bear  on  sufficient  materials, 
i.  e.,  where  we  have  knowledge  enough  to  enable  us 
to  draw  a  conclusion  capable  of  test  and  proof. 
The  result  is  so  invariable  and  uniform  as  to  warrant 
an  a  priori  conclusion  of  the  same  purport,  whenever 
we  have  to  deal  with  insufficient  materials,  i.  e.,  we 
may  confidently  foretell  that,  when  we  do  gain  more 
knowledge,  the  results  will  necessarily  agree  with 
those  that  have  been  attained  in  other  similar 
cases. 

2.  It  follows  that  man  never  really  invents  any 
thing.  At  least  not  in  the  sense  commonly  given  to 
the  word  in  our  approximate  every-day  speech.  Origi- 
nally the  word,  which  is  a  Latin  one — iiiveiiio, — 
meant  simply  to  "  find,"  or  more  literally  still,  "  to 
come  upon  "  something  ;  a  most  correct  and  precise 
rendering  of  the  thing  it  stands  for,  since  an  "  in- 
vention "  is  always,  in  the  beginning,  an  involuntary 
act,  an  illumination  of  the  mind.     The  inventor  ac- 


A/^VAJV  MYTHS.  35 

cidentally  finds  something,  stumbles  upon  an  idea, 
which,  if  his  gifts  He  that  way,  he  develops  and 
works  out  into  something  serviceable,  or  beautiful, 
or  wise,  and  in  its  final  form,  new.  But  he  in  no 
case,  and  in  no  sense,  creates.  Man  never  can  pro- 
duce any  thing  absolutely  new,  that  never  existed  at 
all,  in  any  shape  whatever.  He  compares,  arranges, 
combines,  transforms,  but  he  must  have  something 
to  work  upon.  To  use  a  homely  but  very  pertinent 
simile :  the  spinner,  the  weaver,  the  dyer,  and  the 
embroiderer  produce  articles  of  marvellous  variety 
in  quality,  texture,  color,  and  design  ;  but  they  could 
do  nothing  had  not  the  raw  material  been  given  in  the 
first  instance — the  flax,  or  wool,  or  cotton,  or  silk. 

3.  The  question  with  which  the  preceding  chapter 
closed  is  virtually  answered  by  what  has  just  been 
said.  Zarathushtra  was  a  reformer.  And  as  one  of 
the  chief  facts  about  every  new  religion  is  its  atti- 
tude towards  its  predecessor,  the  religion  from  which 
it  sprang,  and  which  it  strives  to  supplant,  the  next 
questions  that  arise  are  these :  What  materials  did 
the  master  find  ready  to  his  hand?  What  did  he  re- 
tain, what  reject,  what  did  he  bring  of  his  own  ?  And 
what  were  the  compelling  influences  that  called  for  the 
work?  An  inquiry  of  this  kind  is  something  like 
tracing  a  river  to  its  springs.  Even  when  the  visible 
fountain-head  is  reached  high  in  the  mountain  wilds, 
there  is  much  more  to  find  out ;  for  many  are  the 
rivulets  that  ooze  their  way  through  hidden  under- 
ground passages,  that  dribble  and  trickle  through 
spongeous  stone  and  rocky  rifts,  until  they  reach  the 
common  gathering-point.     And   it  is  those    unseen 


36  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

rills  and  driblets,  tinged  and  flavored  by  contact 
with  the  various  substances  through  which  they  pass, 
that  determine  the  purity  and  wholesomeness  of  the 
waters  which  are  to  slake  the  thirst  of  thousands. 

4.  We  have  hitherto  been  exclusively  occupied 
with  the  thoughts  and  deeds  of  three  out  of  the 
half  dozen  leading  races  of  humanity.  Of  these, 
one — the  Shumiro-Accads  of  Chaldea — belonged  to 
the  yellow,  or  Turanian,  race;  the  second — the  peo- 
ples of  Canaan — to  the  much-mixed  Hamitic  stock; 
and  the  third — Babylonians,  Assyrians,  and  Jews — 
to  the  Semitic  division  of  the  great  white  family. 
We  saw  the  moral  and  intellectual  characteristics  of 
each  reflected  in  their  religions,  while  these  again 
reacted  on  their  destinies.  The  nations  of  Eran, 
which  in  the  course  of  history  next  claim  our  atten- 
tion, belonging  as  they  do  to  our  own  division  of 
mankind,  the  Aryan  or  Indo-European  race,  present 
a  subject  of  study  in  many  ways  more  congenial,  and 
we  feel  in  far  more  direct  sympathy  with  their  spirit- 
ual life,  the  workings  of  which,  from  our  kinship  of 
blood  and  mind,  we  find  it  easy  to  follow  and  to 
share.  It  is,  however,  scarcely  possible,  in  dealing 
with  them,  entirely  to  separate  them  from  their 
brethren  of  India.  These  two  Asiatic  branches  of 
the  Aryan  tree  are  so  closely  connected  in  their  be- 
ginnings, the  sap  that  courses  through  both  is  so 
evidently  the  same  life-blood,  that  a  study  of  the  one 
almost  necessarily  involves  a  parallel  study  of  the 
other.  We  must  at  all  events  pause  here  to  attempt 
a  sketch  of  the  conditions  of  Aryan  life,  from  which 
both  those  branches  originally  drew  their  being. 


ARYAAr  MYTHS.  3/ 

5.  There  was  a  time  when  Eranians  and  Hindus 
were  not  yet,  but  the  ancestors  of  both  lived,  an  un- 
divided nation,  in  a  pleasant  country,  of  which  the 
race  retained  a  dim  but  grateful  remembrance  in  the 
shape  of  tradition,  since  God  himself  is  made  to  say 
in  the  Avesta :  "  The  first  of  the  good  lands  and 
countries  I  created  was  the  Airyana-Vaeja,"  i.  c, 
the  "Aryan  Home  "  (Vendidad,  I.).  How  delightful 
this  primeval  home  of  the  race  was  supposed  to  have 
been  is  further  shown  by  this  statement,  attributed 
to  God  in  the  same  passage  :  "  I  have  made  every 
land  dear  to  its  dwellers,  even  though  it  had  no 
charms  whatever  in  it  ;  had  I  not  made  every  land 
dear  to  its  dwellers,  then  the  whole  living  world 
would  have  invaded  the  Airyana-Vaeja."  It  would  of 
course  be  vain  attempting  to  locate  this  region,  to 
which  remoteness  of  time  has  lent  a  mythical  vague- 
ness ;  but  on  the  whole  it  seems  most  likely  that  the 
primeval  Aryas  dwelt  somewhere  to  the  east  of  the 
Caspian  Sea,  in  the  hilly,  wooded,  and  well  watered 
portions  of  the  high  tableland,  from  which  streams 
of  emigrants  could  freely  flow  southward  and  west- 
ward. It  is  very  probable  that  the  Indo-Eranians 
were  a  large  division  which,  after  separating  from 
the  main  trunk  and  leaving  the  primeval  Aryan 
home,  the  Airyana-Vaeja,  dwelt  for  many  centuries 
in  another  but  not  very  distant  region,  until  their 
turn  came,  and  they  split  into  the  two  great  branches 
which  were  to  spread  over  the  lands  of  India  and  of 
Eran. 

6.  Neither  the  Indo-Eranians  nor  their  fathers, 
the   primeval    Aryas,    have   left    monuments  of   any 


38  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

kind  from  which  we  might  gather  indications  con- 
cerning their  mode  of  life  and  thought,  their  concep- 
tions of  the  world  they  lived  in,  and  the  powers 
that  rule  it.  But  we  have  a  collection  of  a  little 
over  a  thousand  prayers  or  hymns,  preserved  by  the 
Aryan  conquerors  of  India.  This  collection  is  the 
famous  RiG-Veda,  one  of  the  Hindus'  four  sacred 
books.  Il  is  the  most  ancient  of  the  four;  and  as 
such,  of  the  greatest  value  to  us.  A  goodly  portion 
of  the  hymns  are  very  old  indeed,  and  take  us  back 
to  the  earliest  times  of  Aryan  occupation  in  the 
northwestern  part  of  India,  named  from  the  river 
Indus  and  its  principal  affluents,  "  the  land  of  the 
Seven  Rivers,"  now  Penjab,  a  time  probably  not  very 
much  anterior  to  Zoroaster  and  the  Gathas.  As  these 
hymns  beyond  doubt  embody  no  new  ideas,  but 
those  which  the  settlers  had  brought  from  their  more 
northern  homes,  it  is  not  dif^cult  to  reconstruct  from 
them  the  simple  creed  of  the  Indo-Eranians,  if  not 
of  the  Aryas  themselves,  the  creed  from  which  two 
religions  were  to  spring:  Hindu  Brahmanism  and 
Eranian  Mazdeism,  religions  than  which  none  can 
differ  more  widely  in  scope  and  character,  yet  bear 
more  palpable  signs  of  an  original  common  source. 

7.  At  the  very  earliest  stage  of  their  spiritual  life 
at  which  we  can  reach  them,  the  Aryas  already  ap- 
pear far  superior  to  the  Turanians,  as  represented  by 
those  early  Shumiro-Accads,  who  have  left  such 
ample  records  of  themselves.  This  is  partly  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  difference  of  time,  since  Aryan  an- 
tiquity has  nothing  to  show  at  all  like  the  prodigious 
dates — as  high  as  4000  B.C. — authentically  established 


AJ?VAJV  MYTHS.  39 

for  Chaldea,  and  still  more  to  difference  of  race.  If 
the  Spiritism  or  goblin-worship  of  early  Shumir  and 
Accad  have  at  some  time  necessarily  been  the  religion 
of  mankind  in  general,  as  the  crudest,  rudimentary 
manifestation  of  the  religious  instinct  inborn  in  man, 
some  races  took  the  step  to  a  higher  spiritual  level 
earlier  than  others,  while  those  purely  Turanian 
people  who  remained  uninfluenced  by  foreign  cul- 
tures have  scarcely  taken  that  step  even  yet.*  Our 
earliest  glimpse  of  the  Aryas  shows  them  to  us  at 
the  stage  which  may  be  called  that  of  pure  nature- 
worship,  as  developed  by  the  particular  conditions 
of  land  and  clime  under  which  they  were  placed,  and 
the  life,  half  pastoral,  half  agricultural,  which  they 
led.  The  beneficent  Powers  of  Nature — the  bright 
Heaven  ;  all-pervading  Light ;  Fire,  as  manifested  in 
the  lightning,  or  the  flame  on  the  altar  and  the 
hearth  ;  the  Sun  in  all  his  many  aspects ;  the  kindly 
motherly  Earth  ;  the  Winds,  the  Waters,  the  life- 
giving  Thunderstorm ; — all  these  were  by  them 
adored  and  entreated,  as  divine  beings,  gods.  The 
harmful  Powers,  far  fewer  in  number,  principally 
Darkness  and  Drought,  were  fiends  or  demons,  to 
be  abhorred,  denounced,  and  accursed,  never  propiti- 
ated— and  herein  lay  one  of  the  chief  differences  be- 
tween Aryan  conceptions  and  those  of  Turanian  and 
Canaanitic  races.  In  the  ideas  of  these  latter  the 
Powers  that  do  evil  to  man  are  to  be  conciliated  and 
inclined  to  mercy  by  prayer  and  sacrifice  ;  in  those 
of  the  former  they  must  be  fought  and  vanquished, 
a  duty  which  naturally  devolves  on  their  adversaries  : 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  Ch.  III.,  "  Turanian  Chaldea." 


40  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

it  is  the  natural  business  of  Light  to  conquer  Dark- 
ness, of  Wind  and  Storm  to  gather  the  clouds  driven 
out  of  sight  by  the  fiends  of  Drought,  and  to  pour 
down  rain.  Hence  the  Aryas'  simple  and  manly  at- 
titude towards  their  deities  :  praise,  thanksgiving, 
and  prayers  for  help,  and  a  religion  so  plain  and 
transparent  that  a  sketch  of  it  can  be  given  in  a  very 
few  pages. 

8.  There  are  few  facts  better  established  than  this, 
— that  the  oldest  known  and  most  exalted  Aryan 
god  is  Heaven,  the  luminous,  the  earth-enclosing. 
His  name  in  the  Sanskrit  of  the  Rig-Veda — which  is 
older  than  that  of  any  other  Sanskrit  literature,  is 
Dyaus,  and,  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  Varuna. 
Both  names  originally  are  really  common  nouns, 
and  mean  the  same  thing.  For  DyAus  is  the  word 
used  in  Sanskrit  to  designate  the  visible  Sky,  while 
Varuna,  in  a  slightly  altered  form— Ouranos — to 
this  day  means  "  Sky  "  or  "  Heaven  "  in  Greek.  It 
is  clear  that  these  names  carry  us  back  to  the  prime- 
val Aryan  times,  the  times  when  those  detachments 
departed  which  reached  Europe  in  their  wanderings. 
Although  the  Indo-Eranian  religion  was  frankly 
polytheistic,  yet  a  certain  supremacy  seems  to  have 
attached  to  the  Sky-god,  and  he  is  pre-eminently  en- 
titled, in  the  oldest  portions  of  the  Rig,  both  under 
the  name  of  Dyaus  and  that  of  Varuna,  Asura — 
"  Lord  "  ;  Varuna  frequently  also  receives  the  epi- 
thet of  All-Knowing,  Omniscient.  The  sun  is  his 
eye ;  Fire,  in  its  celestial  lightning  form,  is  his  son,  and 
the  visible  starry  sky  is  his  royal  robe.  For  he  is  far 
from  being  a  mere  personification  of  a  physical  fact. 


AJ^V^A^  MYTHS.  4 1 

He  is,  on  the  contrary,  endowed  with  the  highest 
moral  attributes.  He  established  heaven  and  earth  ; 
he  is  the  giver  and  keeper  of  the  order  and  harmony 
which  are  the  Law  of  the  universe,  the  Cosmos,  and 
which,  transferred  from  the  material  to  the  spiritual 
and  moral  world,  becomes  the  Law  of  Righteousness, 
deviation  from  which  is  sin  and  the  beginning  of  all 
wrong  and  confusion.  Hence  it  is  to  Varuna  that 
expressions  of  penitence  and  prayers  for  forgiveness 
are  addressed,  for  he  is  the  punisher  ;  and  the  sin 
which  he  most  detests  is  lying. 

9.  The  name  of  Varuna  is  coupled  in  a  great  many 
invocations  with  that  of  another  bright  being,  MiTRA 
(z.  e,  "  the  Friend  "),  Daylight  personified.  The  as- 
sociation between  them  is  so  close,  that  they  present 
themselves  to  the  mind  as  an  inseparable  pair,  Va- 
runa-Mitra,  or  Mitra- Varuna,  who  drive  the  same 
chariot,  think  the  same  thoughts.  Together  they 
are  the  keepers  of  the  Cosmic  Order  and  the  Law  of 
Righteousness,  together  they  watch  the  deeds  and 
the  hearts  of  men,  equally  all-seeing,  all-knowing, 
and  the  sun  is  called  the  eye  of  Mitra- Varuna  as 
often  as  of  Varuna  alone.  What  more  natural  than 
this  connection.  Heaven  and  Daylight — Mitra- Va- 
runa—the  Luminous  Sky?  There  are  indications  of 
Varuna  and  Mitra  having  been  associated  with  several 
luminous  deities  of  rank  somewhat  inferior  to  their 
own  (the  Adityas),  not  only  in  the  Indo-Eranian  pe- 
riod, but  in  the  primeval  Aryan  period,  and  to  have 
formed  with  them  a  company  of  seven.  The  sacred- 
ness  and  significance  of  this  number  is  universal  and 
unspeakably  ancient,  and  it  will  probably  be  traced 


42  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

to  primeval  humanity  before  its  first  separation. 
One  would  be  inclined  to  fancy  that  these  seven 
luminous  beings  were  really  only  pale  reflections  of 
Varuna-Mitra,  (they  being  the  first  of  them),  invented 
for  the  sake  of  the  sacred  number. 

10.  One  of  the  many  Old-Sanskrit  names  for 
Lightning,  the  son  of  the  Asura  Vdruna,  is  Athar- 
VAN,  literally  "  he  who  has  Athar."  Sacred  tradi- 
tion has  transformed  this  mythical  Atharvan  into  a 
high-priest,  first  bringer  of  fire  to  men  and  institutor 
of  sacrifice  in  the  form  of  burnt-offering.  There  is 
to  this  day  a  large  class  of  priests  in  India — those 
who  have  the  special  charge  of  the  sacred  and  sacri- 
ficial fires,— 7who  are  called  Atharvans,  and  tradition 
makes  them  lineal  descendants  of  that  first  mythical 
high-priest,  who  on  closer  inspection  resolves  himself 
into  the  Fire-god,  the  personified  element  of  Fire, 
descended  from  heaven  in  the  shape  of  lightning, 
otherwise  Athar,  the  son  of  Varuna.  Athari  in 
Sanskrit  means  "  flame  "  atJiaryii  ("  flaming,  blaz- 
ing ")  is  a  frequent  by-word  for  Agni  =  Fire.  Athar 
consequently  is  one  of  the  oldest  Aryan  names  of 
Fire  ;  if  not  the  oldest,  for  there  is  a  Greek  word 
which  points  farther  back  than  the  Indo-Eranian 
period.  That  word  is  athrageni,  the  name  of  a 
plant,  a  creeper,  the  wood  of  which  was  used  in  very 
ancient  times  to  bring  forth  fire  by  friction.  Inter- 
preted, it  can  mean  nothing  but  "  zuhat  gives  birth  to 
Athar."  It  was  obsolete  already  in  the  classical 
Greek  times,  and  the  plant  has  never  been  identified. 
As  to  the  sacredness  of  the  element  itself,  it  is  as 
universal  and  primevally  ancient  as  that  of  the  num- 


ARYAN  MYTHS.  43 

ber  seven.  It  has  always  been  the  object  of  a  pecul- 
iarly fervent  and,  if  one  may  say  so,  endearing  wor- 
ship, as  the  friend  of  man,  who  sits  on  his  hearth, 
assists  in  his  tasks,  the  substitute  for  the  light  of 
day,  for  the  warmth  of  the  sun,  the  conqueror  and 
disperser  of  all  evil  things  that  lurk  in  darkness,  of 
phantoms  and  bad  dreams, — lastly  as  the  messenger 
between  the  two  worlds,  whose  flames,  leaping  aloft, 
carry  up  to  Heaven  the  prayers  and  offerings  of 
men. 

II.  In  its  original  celestial  form,  as  Lightning, 
Fire,  the  Son  of  Heaven,  plays  a  prominent  part  in 
the  war  which  the  bright  Devas,  the  givers  of  light, 
life,  and  plenty,  are  forever  waging  with  the  demons 
of  Darkness  and  Drought,  and  the  battle-ground  of 
which  is  the  intermediate  region  between  heaven  and 
earth,  the  Atmosphere.  It  is  in  the  poetical  descrip- 
tions of  this  warfare  that  the  Aryan  race  displayed 
all  its  gifts  of  imagery,  its  exuberant  epic  genius.  The 
eternal  conflict  which  to  us  is  a  series  of  meteoro- 
logical phenomena,  spiritualized  only  in  rare  poetical 
moods,  and  always  consciously,  was  to  the  early 
Aryas,  the  most  impressionable  and  imaginative  of 
races,  a  thrilling  drama  carried  on  by  living,  super- 
human beings,  mighty  for  good  or  for  evil.  Or 
rather  two  distinct  dramas,  with  two  different  pro- 
tagonists. The  two  supreme  goods,  which  give  all 
the  others,  are  Light  and  Rain.  The  arch-enemies 
of  mankind  are  those  powers  that  rob  them  of  these 
treasures.  Now  the  war  with  the  fiends  of  Darkness 
and  Night  is  comparatively  a  simple  afTair,  which  is 
naturally  left  entirely  to  the  Sun.    Still,  the  inexhaus- 


44  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

tible  imagination  of  the  Aryas  filled  it  with  a  variety 
of  incidents  replete  with  gorgeous  or  delicate  poetry, 
creating  that  fund  of  Sun-myths  to  which  fully  one 
half  of  the  stories  and  poetry  of  the  world  are  trace- 
able. This,  however,  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  a 
study  of  them,  for  we  are  now  in  search  of  the 
sources  of  Eranian  religion  and  epos,  and  the  Sun- 
myth  somehow  never  much  caught  the  fancy  of  that 
particularly  stern  and  practical  race,  and  so  is  but 
feebly  reflected  in  its  spiritual  life. 

12.  Far  more  complicated  is  the  Storm-myth,  the 
story  of  the  struggle  for  the  waters  of  heaven  ;  far 
more  varied  and  exciting  too,  because,  through  its 
many  stages  and  incidents  to  its  culmination  in  the 
final  battle-scene,  the  thunder-storm,  the  success  often 
seems  doubtful,  the  advantage  frequently  remains  for 
a  long  time  with  the  hostile  powers,  even  though  the 
victory  can  never  be  theirs  in  the  end.  Numberless 
are  the  wiles  of  the  fiends  to  gain  and  keep  posses- 
sion of  the  waters,  and  desperate  their  acts  of  vio- 
lence and  resistance ;  numberless  also  the  shapes 
they  assume — and  no  wonder,  since  they  are  chiefly 
the  personifications  of  different  kinds  of  clouds.  For 
there  are  clouds  and  clouds,  and  not  all  by  any  means 
bode  or  bring  rain.  If  some  generously  pour  down 
the  precious,  pure  liquid  that  is  life  and  drink  to  the 
parched  pining  earth,  others  keep  it  back,  wickedly 
hide  it,  swell  and  spread  with  the  treasure  they 
cover  and  enclose,  and  will  not  give  it  up,  until 
pierced  and  torn  asunder  by  the  lightning  spear  of 
the  angry  thunder-god.  This  difference  in  clouds, 
which   does   not   strike  us  except  on  reflection,  su- 


aj^vajv  myths.  45 

perficial  as  our  attention  to  the  outer  world  has 
become,  could  not  escape  the  observation  of  people 
who,  so  to  speak,  lived  on  nature's  lap,  whose  sim- 
ple mode  of  life  fostered  the  closest,  most  watchful 
dependence  on  her  every  mood,  while  the  unparal- 
leled vigor  and  fertility  of  their  poetical  fancy  not 
only  suggested  to  them  a  thousand  similes,  as  strik- 
ing as  varied,  but  straightway  transformed  each  of 
these  into  a  person  and  a  story.  Let  us  examine 
a  few  of  these  creations,  in  which  one  hardly  knows 
what  most  to  admire — the  childlike,  naive  simplicity, 
or  their  unfailing  appropriateness.  A  very  few,  for 
the  reason  expressed  above,  reserving  a  thorough 
exploration  of  this  veritable  fairyland  of  our  race's 
childhood  for  another  volume,  to  be  devoted  to 
ancient  India,  where  it  bloomed  more  luxuriantly 
than  in  any  other  land. 

13.  It  must  have  been  one  of  the  earliest,  because 
the  most  natural  flights  of  fancy,  which  compared 
the  light  and  fleecy  clouds  to  herds  of  kine  lazily 
moving  across  space,  as  across  a  broad  pasture,  and 
pouring  down  their  milk — the  rain,  to  feed  the  earth 
and  all  living  things.  Somewhat  more  elaborate  and 
far-fetched,  but  still  perfectly  intelligible,  is  the  poeti- 
cal effort  which  likens  them  to  graceful  women.  We 
thus  have  the  heavenly  Water-Maidens,  and  the  di- 
vine Waters,  wives  of  the  gods,  the  Asuras,  and 
more  especially  of  the  Supreme  Asura,  Varuna. 
As  such  they  are  the  mothers  of  Lightning,  one  of 
whose  most  sacred  names  is,  very  consistently,  "  Son 
of  the  Waters,"  Apam  Napat.  The  fiends,  there- 
fore, who  withhold  the  rain  and  bring  on  the  earth 


46  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

the  horrors  of  drought  and  famine,  are,  in  mythical 
speech,  stealers  of  cows  or  of  women.  They  either 
spirit  them  away  altogether  out  of  sight,  or  shut 
them  up  in  dark  mountain  caves,  or  in  strongholds 
— these  being  standing  designations,  in  Aryan  my- 
thology, for  the  dark,  lowering  clouds  which  rise  at 
the  end  of  the  sky  in  the  shape  of  mountain  ridges 
or  fortress-walls,  with  battlements  and  towers.  Then 
Indra,  the  god  of  the  thunderbolt,  resplendent  in 
his  golden  armor,  mounts  his  chariot,  drawn  by  fleet 
dappled  steeds — the  racing  clouds  of  the  storm,  to- 
gether with  his  inseparable  companion  Vayu,  the 
wind  that  ever  moves  in  the  heights  of  the  atmos- 
phere ;  after  them  ride  the  troop  of  the  str6ng 
Storm-Winds,  and  the  battle  begins.  Not  long  can 
the  mountain  or  the  fortress  hold  out  against  their 
onslaught.  After  repeated  blows  from  Indra's 
fiery  mace,  the  rocks,  the  walls  are  burst  open,  the 
cows  are  brought  forth  and  pour  down  their  longed- 
for  milk  ;  or,  if  the  other  image  be  adopted,  the 
maidens,  the  wives  are  delivered. 

14.  But  there  is  no  end  to  the  suggestiveness  of 
clouds,  as  whoever  has  spent  idle  hours  at  sea  or  in 
the  mountains  watching  them  will  not  need  to  be 
told.  There  is  not  a  child  who  has  not  discovered 
in  the  sky  likenesses,  animal  shapes,  fantastic  forms 
of  monsters  and  giants,  landscapes,  and  cities.  To 
our  Aryan  ancestors  the  cloud  that  gave  no  rain  was* 
the  most  malignant  of  fiends  ;  it  was  to  them  Vritra, 
the  "coverer"  or  "enfolder,"  and  "  Killer  of  Vritra," 
— Vritrahan — is  the  highest  term  of  praise,  the 
most  triumphant  title  bestowed  on  the  devas  who  sue- 


ARYAN  MYTHS.  47 

ceed  in  piercing  his  shaggy  hide,  and  letting  out  the 
imprisoned  waters.  This  epithet  became  a  special 
by-word  for  Indra,  as  being  the  demon's  most  con- 
stant adversary,  whose  own  particular  weapon,  the 
lightning-spear,  alone  can  end  the  fray.  Another 
and  still  more  popular  cloud-demon  is  Ahi,  "  the 
serpent"  who  sits  on  the  mountain  and  defies  the 
devas.  It  is  the  dark  storm-cloud  of  many  coils, 
which  it  slowly  winds  and  unwinds  on  top  of  the 
mountain, — clouds  banked  up  against  the  horizon. 
It  is  usually  the  indefatigable  Indra  who  fights  and 
kills  him,  and  the  story  is  told  in  a  hundred  more 
or  less  dramatic  versions  in  the  Rig-Veda.  This 
same  serpent-fiend  is  one  of  the  most  active  and 
ubiquitous,  and  we  find  him  again  and  again,  in  epos 
and  story,  in  a  variety  of  situations  and  combina- 
tions, where  his  original  nature  as  cloud-  and  storm- 
demon  is  forgotten. 

15.  A  notable  peculiarity  of  the  Aryan  conception 
of  nature,  earthly  and  divine,  is  the  extremely  dig- 
nified attitude  apportioned  to  man  in  his  relations  to 
the  higher  powers.  As  in  every  religion,  prayer  and 
sacrifice  are  required,  but  in  a  somewhat  different 
spirit :  he  does  not  passively  entreat  favor,  he  in  a 
measure  also  grants  it ;  he  is  supposed  to  Jiclp  his 
bright  devas  in  the  good  fight  against  the  demons. 
His  songs  of  praise  and  thanksgiving  encourage  them  ; 
the  sacrificial  offerings  to  which  he  bids  them  as 
guests,  and  of  which  they  partake  as  friends  partake 
of  a  feast  in  the  house  of  a  friend,  increase  their 
vigor,  just  as  food  increases  that  of  men  ;  above  all, 
the  drink-offering,  the  exhilarating  Soma-juice,  fills 


48  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

them  with  glee,  strength,  and  valor.  Nay,  they  are 
actually  dependent  on  it  for  victory,  and  would  be 
unable  to  overcome  the  fiends  were  they  not  liberal- 
ly supplied  with  the  wonderful  liquid.  It  is  espe- 
cially Indra  who  is  said  to  consume  enormous  quan- 
tities of  it,  after  which  his  onslaught  is  irresistible. 

1 6.  The  Indian  SOMA  is  a  plant  with  soft  and  flex- 
ible stem,  which  contains  a  milky  juice.  This  juice, 
being  pressed  out  and  allowed  to  ferment,  gives  an 
intoxicating  liquor,  the  use  of  which  at  sacrifices  is 
one  of  the  very  earliest  customs  of  the  Aryan  race. 
It  was  poured  into  the  fire,  which  burned  the  brighter 
for  the  alcohol  it  contained,  and  the  priests  drank  it 
themselves,  probably  in  quantities  suf^cient  to  feel 
the  intoxicating  effects.  Nothing  extraordinary  so 
far.  But  the  strange  and  distinctively  Aryan  feature 
of  thisobservance  is  that  the  Soma  plant  and  the  Soma 
juice  were  not  only  held  sacred,  but  actually  wor- 
shipped as  a  divine  being,  a  god  ;  so  that  Soma  came 
to  be  not  only  one  of  the  devas,  but  one  of  the 
mightiest,  most  dread,  and  most  beneficent.  There 
is  in  the  effect  of  stimulants,  when  used  in  modera- 
tion, an  elevating,  exhilarating  virtue  which  seems  to 
have  struck  the  discoverers  of  the  plant  and  its  prop- 
erties as  supernatural.  The  strange  light-hearted- 
ness,  the  temporary  oblivion  of  cares  and  sorrows, 
the  heightened  vitality  manifested  in  greater  cour- 
age, in  loosened,  eloquent  tongue,  nay,  frequently  in 
poetical,  even  prophetical,  inspiration,  made  them 
feel  transfigured,  as  by  the  presence  of  a  foreign 
and  higher  element ;  a  god,  they  thought,  must  have 
descended   and   entered   into   them, — and   that  god 


ARYAN  MYTHS.  49 

dwelt  in  the  consecrated  plant  of  sacrifice — the  god 
Soma,  the  friend  alike  of  gods  and  men, — for  in  their 
crude  anthropomorphism  they  could  not  but  imagine 
that  their  devas  would  be  affected  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  themselves,  to  a  proportionately  higher  degree. 
So  when  they  bade  them  to  the  sacrificial  feast,  they 
did  not  forget  to  provide  their  due  treat  of  Soma; 
and  sent  them,  rejoicing  and  invigorated,  to  do  bat- 
tle against  Vritra  and  Ahi  and  the  cow-stealers  with 
their  bands  of  fiends. 

17.  Great  as  is  the  power  of  prayer  which  is  sup- 
posed to  help  the  deity,  the  Aryas  went  even  fur- 
ther: they  imagined  that  in  prayer,  or  rather  in  the 
recitation  of  certain  prayers  and  sacred  texts,  lay  a 
force  that  could  compel  the  devas'  assistance,  nay, 
almost  their  submission,  and  defeat  the  demons  by 
their  own  inherent  virtue.  The  Mantra  ("  Sacred 
Word,"  text)  thus  became  a  weapon  of  attack  and 
defence  against  the  demons,  a  weapon  of  irresistible 
might.  At  a  late  period  of  development,  this  idea 
of  the  compelling  power  of  prayer  was  carried  to  in- 
credible lengths  of  absurdity,  claiming  nothing  short 
of  omnipotence  for  certain  peculiarly  endowed  mor- 
tals ;  but  in  its  origin  the  notion  has  nothing  impi- 
ous or  unnatural.  "  Man's  prayer,"  says  one  of  our 
most  eminent  mythologists,*  "  is  generally  in  accord- 
ance to  nature;  he  asks  for  rain  in  times  of  drought, 
— and  rain  must  follow  on  drought ;  he  asks  for  light 
in  darkness, — and  light  must  come  after  darkness. 
Seeing  that  his  prayer  is  invariably  heard,  he  ascribes 
to  it  pozver  to  effect  its  object."  The  few  other  things 
*  Darmesteter  :   "  Ormazd  et  Ahriman,"  page  114,  note  i. 


50  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

that  the  Aryas  prayed  and  sacrificed  for  in  those 
primitive  times, — a  numerous  and  healthy  posterity, 
increase  of  cattle,  health  and  long  life  for  them- 
selves, and  victory  in  their  wars  with  the  natives  of 
the  countries  they  occupied, — were  the  very  things 
that  could  not  fail  to  come  to  them  in  the  conditions 
in  which  their  life  was  passed,  and  with  their  superi- 
ority of  race.  So  there  was  nothing  to  shake,  and 
every  thing  to  confirm,  their  excessive  faith  ;  for 
man,  unenlightened  by  scientific  culture,  conse- 
quently believing  in  powers,  not  laws,  is  ever  prone 
to  admit  rather  supernatural  than  natural  agencies. 

1 8.  From  this  conception  there  was  but  one  step — 
and  not  a  wide  one  either — to  making  of  the  hymn, 
the  Sacred  Text  (Mantra),  a  Person,  an  independent 
deity,  to  be  individually  invoked  and  adored,  as  be- 
ing not  only  beneficent  in  a  general  way,  but  like 
Indra,  Soma,  and  other  devas,  essentially  "  demon- 
killing  "^ — vritrahan.  It  is  to  be  noted  that,  in  order 
to  insure  its  full  power  and  effectiveness,  the  Mantra 
was  to  be  recited  at  the  proper  time,  in  the  proper 
way,  with  the  proper  intonations  of  voice,  all  strictly 
determined  by  rules  ;  rules — numerous,  complicated, 
and  infinitely  minute — governing  also  every  step  of 
the  sacrifice  which  usually  accompanied  the  recitation. 
If  these  rules  be  perfectly  complied  with,  the  Mantra, 
the  sacrifice  will  take  effect,  quite  independently  of  the 
disposition  of  mind  of  the  worshipper.  If  departed 
from  in  the  smallest  particular,  prayer  and  sacrifice 
both  are  worse  than  useless — they  most  likely  will 
act  the  wrong  way  and  bring  down  disaster  on  the 
worshipper's  head,  though  his  soul  may  be  filled  with 


JJiVAAT  MYTHS.  51 

the  purest  and  most  fervent  piety,  It  is,  therefore, 
safest  for  the  layman  not  to  meddle  with  these  mat- 
ters at  all,  but  leave  them  in  the  hands  of  the  priests, 
who  are  qualified  by  right  divine  to  wield  the  spiritual 
power,  and  will,  if  meetly  remunerated,  perform  for 
the  layman  the  necessary  ceremonies,  instruct  him 
as  to  his  own  share  in  them,  and  see  that  he  does 
not  come  to  harm,  through  ignorance  or  over- 
officiousness. 

19.  It  will  be  seen  that  so  material  a  conception 
and  use  of  prayer  and  sacrifice  are  more  like  con- 
juring, in  spirit  and  object,  than  any  thing  else. 
They  may  be  considered  as  a  remnant,  slightly  trans- 
formed, of  that  grossest  and  most  primitive  stage  of 
religious  consciousness  which  every  race  must  start 
from,  and  which  we  saw  amply  illustrated  in  the 
most  ancient  practices  and  conjuring-feats  of  the 
Shumiro-Accad  sorcerer-priests.  The  old  Aryas  and 
Indo-Eranians  had  by  no  means  shaken  themselves 
free  of  this  primitive  materialism.  The  gods  whom 
they  worship  often  bewilder  us  by  their  mixed  nature, 
made  up  of  material  and  spiritual  attributes  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  it  very  difficult  to  know  where  to 
draw  the  line.  While  at  one  time  Varuna,  Mitra, 
Agni,  Soma,  are  beyond  a  doubt  praised  and  invoked 
as  the  visible,  material  sky,  light,  fire,  the  plant 
that  is  brought  from  the  mountains,  cut  up  and 
pressed,  and  as  the  fermented  intoxicating  beverage  ; 
at  others  they  are  addressed  as  the  most  spiritual 
beings  and  invested  with  the  loftiest  abstract  proper- 
ties :  Varuna  becomes  the  Lord  that  dwells  in  or 
above  the  sky,  whose  robe   the  sky  is,  the   hater  of 


52  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

lies  and  the  punisher  of  sins  ;  together  with  Mitra, 
all-seeing,  all-knowing,  he  is  the  keeper  of  the  Cos- 
mic Order  and  the  Law  of  Righteousness ;  Soma  is 
the  Healer,  the  giver  of  life  and  immortality,  the 
god  of  inspiration  and  heroism.  This  second,  half 
material  stage  in  the  evolution  of  religious  feeling, 
is  closely  matched  in  ancient  Chaldea  by  the  period 
of  those  beautiful  hymns  to  the  Sun,  to  Fire,  to  the 
Moon,  etc.,  which  have  been  aptly  compared  with 
those  of  the  Rig-Veda.* 

20.  A  mythology  so  rich  in  dramatic  incidents 
and  personages  is  a  very  hot-bed  for  the  growth  of 
mythical  epos,  which  every  race  creates  for  itself  by 
the  simple  trick  of  transferring  the  various  scenes  of 
the  atmospheric  drama,  be  it  sun-myth  or  storm- 
myth,  from  heaven  and  cloud-land  down  to  earth, 
transforming  the  gods  into  heroes,  the  Sun-maidens 
and  Water-maidens  into  mortal  women,  the  cloud- 
cattle  into  herds  of  real  kine,  and  the  demons  into 
wild  beasts  or  monsters,  or  giants  and  dragons. 
Each  nation,  of  course,  weaves  into  this  common 
fund  of  mythical  romance  the  names  and  dimly  out- 
lined forms  of  its  own  ancient  heroes,  together  with 
such  circumstances  of  its  real  history  as  tradition' 
has  preserved.  Many  are  the  divine  champions  of  the 
Aryan  myth  which  reappear  in  such  new  garb  in  the 
epos  of  India  and  that  of  Eran,  and  consequently 
must  have  passed  through  the  Indo-Eranian  period. 
Of  these  semi-heroic,  semi-divine  myths,  the  most 
important  and  interesting  is  that  of  Yama. 

21.  Yama  was  originally  one  of  the  names  of  the 

*See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  Chapter  III.,  from  p.  170. 


AJiYAN  MYTHS.  53 

setting  sun,  in  the  particularly  sad  and  solemn  as- 
pect of  the  departing,  dying  god,  which,  however, 
contained  the  consoling  suggestion  of  resurrection 
and  immortality.*  He  was  the  first  to  go  the  way 
that  all  must  go — "  to  show  the  way  to  many," 
in  the  language  of  the  Rig-hymn.  He  was  grad- 
ually transformed  into  the  first  man — the  first  who 
lived,  and,  consequently,  the  first  who  died.  Be- 
ing the  first  to  arrive  in  "  the  vasty  halls  of  death,"  f 
he  becomes  master  and  host  there,  receiving  those 
who  join  him  in  succession,  and,  by  a  natural  transi- 
tion. King  of  the  Dead.  Then  popular  fancy  goes 
to  work  to  complete  the  transformation  by  pictur- 
esque touches  of  appropriate  detail,  unconsciously 
borrowed  from  the  same  inexhaustible  treasury  of 
myth.  So  Yama  is  given  two  dogs,  "  brown,  broad- 
snouted,  four-eyed,"  whose  business  it  is  to  go  forth 
into  the  world  each  day,  to  scent  out  those  whose 
hour  has  come,  and  drive  them  like  sheep  to  the 
dread  king's  presence.  Yet  King  Yama  is  by  no 
means  an  image  of  terror,  but  rather  an  auspi- 
cious and  gracious  presence,  as  he  sits  with  the 
gods  in  the  highest  heaven  under  the  wide-spreading 
tree — the  Cosmic  Tree  of  Life,  drinking  the  Soma 
that  drops  from  its  foliage,  and  surrounded  by  the 
PiTRlS — "  Fathers  " — /.  e.,  the  glorified  souls  of  the 
righteous  dead. 

22.  For  the  Aryas  held  their  departed  relatives  in 
great  love  and  reverence,  and  did  not  believe  that 
the  mere  fact  of  dying,  going  from  the  midst  of  his 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  337-339- 
f  Matthew  Arnold,  in  "  Requiescat." 


54  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

family,  severed  a  man's  connection  with  it.  Each  in- 
dividual family  honored  its  own  Pitris,  assembling  at 
stated  times  to  commemorate  their  earthly  lives,  by 
speaking  of  them,  calling  to  mind  their  deeds  and 
good  qualities,  invoking  their  protection,  and  setting 
out  for  them  offerings  of  simple  food — milk,  and 
honey,  and  cakes.  Families  on  these  occasions  par- 
took of  a  common  meal,  to  which  the  supposed  in- 
visible presence  of  the  Pitris  lent  a  mysterious 
solemnity.  These  commemorative  festivals  were 
the  strongest  possible  bond  between  the  members 
of  each  particular  family,  and  the  right  to  assist  in 
them  was  strictly  limited  and  determined  by  custom 
so  sacred,  that  it  became  law  and  the  standard  for 
the  regulation  of  the  right  of  succession.  The  Pitris 
were  supposed  to  be  very  powerful  to  do  good  or 
evil  to  their  descendants,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
depend  for  their  own  happiness  and  comfort  on  the 
affectionate  remembrance  of  the  living. 

23.  It  stands  to  reason  that  the  remote  ancestors 
of  a  group  of  families  connected  by  blood  relation- 
ship, /.  e.,  of  a  clan  or  tribe,  must  have  been  revered 
by  all  the  branches  of  the  clan  ;  that  festivals  on  a 
larger  scale  must  have  been  kept  in  their  honor, 
which  were  the  occasions  of  general  meetings  of  the 
clans,  and  kept  alive  the  feeling  of  kinship  and  fellow- 
ship. Such  ancestors  frequently  became  tribal  heroes, 
fit  subjects  for  story  and  song,  which  eked  out  what- 
ever tradition  had  preserved  of  their  real  exploits 
with  mythical  traits,  the  true  import  of  which  was 
soon  lost  sight  of.  Such  is  the  origin  of  most  of 
those  demigods,  beings  mortal  yet  more  than  human, 


ARYAN  MYTHS.  55 

who  crowd  tne  borderland  between  myth  and  his- 
tory, whose  disembodied  spirits  were  worshipped  as 
tutelary  deities,  and  whose  earthly  careers,  haloed 
with  the  glory  transferred  to  them  from  the  divine 
champions  of  Sky  and  Cloud-land,  are  the  materials 
out  of  which  races  weave  their  National  Epos  and 
Heroic  Poetry.  The  Epos  of  Eran  is  rich  with  such 
mythical  heroes,  and  knows  of  whole  dynasties  of 
them,  the  reputed  ancient  kings  of  the  race.  But  a 
presentation  of  them  does  not  lie  within  the  scope 
of  the  present  work.  If  some  of  them  confront  us 
and  claim  our  attention,  we  shall  account  for  them 
as  we  go. 


^-^ 


^^^ 


>pV 


IV. 


ARYAN   MYTHS   IN   THE  AVESTA — THEIR   ALLEGORI- 
CAL  TRANSFORMATION, 

I.  The  myths  of  a  race — as  apart  and  distinguished 
from  its  rehgion — being  reducible  to  physical  phe- 
nomena, animated  into  personal  life  by  poetical 
and  epic  treatment,*  necessarily  convey  some  indica- 
tions as  to  the  physical  conditions  under  which  that 
race  was  placed.  Now  the  influence  of  India  on  its 
population  is,  on  the  whole,  enervating,  both  as  re- 
gards climate  and  soil.  The  latter  is  very  rich  and 
produces  a  great  deal  in  exchange  for  very  little 
work  ;  the  forests,  indeed,  abound  in  nourishment — 
fruits,  and  berries,  and  roots — which  grows  wild,  for 
man  or  beast,  while  the  rivers  are  numerous  and 
seldom  dry  up  ;  the  larger  ones,  like  the  Indus  and 
Ganges,  never.  There  is  therefore,  on  one  hand, 
little  incentive  to  hard  labor,  and  on  the  other,  the 
needs  of  men  are  few,  as  regards  either  shelter,  cloth- 
ing, or  food,  owing  to  the  climate,  which  is  so  hot  as 
to  make  exertion  unwholesome  and  a  spare  vegetable 
diet  the  only  rational  one.  The  Aryan  conquerors, 
as  they  spread  through  the  land  and  dwelt  in  it,  suc- 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  294,  and  ff. 
56 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA. 


57 


cumbed  to  these  influences,  lost  much  of  their  origi- 
nal hardiness  and  active  vigor,  and  were  gradually 
transformed  into  a 
race  of,  physically, 
somewhat  effemi- 
nate men,  of  dwin- 
dled stature  and  del- 
icate proportions, 
in  whom  leisure  and 
habitual  idleness  of 
body  developed  an 
extraordinary  facul- 
ty for  spiritual  con- 
templation and  an 
inordinate  exuber- 
ance of  fancy  — 
which  two  qualities 
combined  give  color 
and  tone  to  their 
entire  mythology, 
religious  and  philo- 
sophical specula- 
tion, and  poetry. 

2.  Very  different 
were  the  influences 
to  which  that  branch 
of  the  Aryan  family 
was  subjected  which 
wandered  into  the 
region  west  of  Cen- 
tral Asia,  the  different  countries  of  which  come  under 
the  general  name  of  Eran.     Their  westward  migra- 


58  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

tion,  after  taking  them  through  pleasant  lands  of 
hills  and  valleys  and  streams,  of  woods  and  pastures, 
little  differing  from  their  older  home,  and  where  they 
founded  prosperous  settlements  and  states — Bactria 
being  the  chief  of  them, — brought  them  to  a  region 
of  novel  and  forbidding  aspect,  a  region  of  sharp 
contrasts,  nay — contraries,  where  nature  seemed  at 
war  with  herself,  and  of  which  nothing  could  give  a 
more  vivid  picture  than  an  admirable  page  from 
Max  Duncker's  "  Ancient  History,"  which  we  will 
proceed  to  borrow : 

"  The  centre  of  Eran  was  formed  of  a  vast  desert  ;  to  the  north  and 
south  stretched  far  away  arid  tablelands  ;  the  favored  districts  might 
almost  be  called  oases.  Immediately  on  the  most  fertile  valleys 
and  slopes  bordered  endless  steppes  ;  blooming  plains,  densely 
shaded  by  groves,  were  encompassed  by  sandy  wp.stes.  If  the 
mountainous  countries  of  the  northeast  possessed  the  stateliest  for- 
ests, the  richest  pastures,  the  snow  fell  early,  the  winters  were 
severe.  If  the  vegetation  was  most  luxuriant  along  the  edge  of  the 
Caspian  Sea,  sickness  and  venomous  reptiles  dwelt  in  the  marshy 
lowlands.  The  people  of  Eran  suffered  not  only  from  the  heat  of 
summer,  but  also  from  the  cold  of  winter  ;  the  scorching  winds  of 
the  desert  were  not  more  to  be  dreaded  than  the  snow-storms  of  the 
northern  tablelands.  Here  pastures  and  cornfields  were  buried  under 
snow  during  many  weeks  ;  there  sand-drifts  destroyed  culture.  Here 
the  camels  died  of  cold  and  slipped  down  the  icy  steeps  into  preci- 
pices ;  there  the  winds  from  the  desert  choked  up  the  wells  and 
springs.  Here  was  winter,  "  with  the  worst  of  its  plagues,"  "cold 
for  the  waters,  cold  for  the  earth,  cold  for  the  trees  "  (Vendidad  I., 
9-12),  there  the  cattle  were  tortured  by  gadflies  in  the  heat  ; 
here  bears  and  wolves  invaded  the  herds,  there  snakes  had  to  be 
guarded  against  and  the  fiercer  wild  beasts.  Life  was  in  this  land  a 
fight  against  heat  and  against  cold,  a  fight  for  the  preservation  of 
the  flocks  ;  and  as  soon  as  single  tribes  had  begun  to  settle  in  the 
more  favored  districts,  and  to  attend  to  agriculture,  it  became  a 
fight  against  the  desert  and  drought.     Here  the  dry  soil  had  to  be 


A/?VAJV  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  59 

supplied  with  water  ;  there  the  crops  had  to  be  protected  against  the 
hot  winds  and  sand  drifts  from  the  desert.  To  these  hardships  and 
contrasts  of  nature  must  be  added  the  contrast  between  the  popula- 
tions. Most  of  the  native  tribes  of  the  central  tableland,  and  many 
of  those  who  held  the  surrounding  highlands,  were  debarred  by  the 
nature  of  the  country  from  leading  any  life  but  that  of  nomadic 
herdsmen.  To  this  day  a  great  portion  of  the  population  of  Eran 
consists  of  nomads.  So  while  the  settlers  labored  lustily,  in  the 
sweat  of  their  brow,  the  others  roved  about  idly  with  their  flocks. 
There  could  be  no  lack  of  raids  into  the  agricultural  districts,  of 
plundering  and  robbing."  * 

3.  The  influences  which  such  conditions  of  life 
must  perforce  have  exerted  on  a  naturally  gifted  and 
high-spirited  race,  brave,  doughty,  and  robust,  are 
incalculable.  It  is  entirely  owing  to  them  that  the 
Eranians  became  what  we  find  them  at  their  entrance 
on  the  stage  of  history — a  people  of  most  noble 
presence,  of  manly  beauty  of  the  heroic  cast,  indom- 
itable fighters,  earnest  and  honest  of  mind,  of  a 
serious  and  practical  turn,  far  more  given  to  the  work 
of  life  than  to  its  graces  and  amenities,  who  thought 
agriculture  and  cattle-raising  the  highest  and  holiest 
of  occupations,  and  art  a  very  secondary  matter,  in 
which,  indeed,  they  reached  proficiency  only  at  a 
very  late  period,  and  that  as  imitators.  It  is  evident 
that  their  moral  and  religious  sense  must  have  been 
vastly  modified  and  shaped  by  the  same  influences. 
It  was  deepened  in  one  particular  channel,  intensi- 
fied in  one  particular  direction.  The  strife  which 
pervaded  their  existence  in  the  land  which  they  had 
made  their  own,  became  to  them  the  main  fact  of 
nature  generally,  pervading  the  whole  creation.  The 
opposition  between  Light  and  Darkness,  and,  conse- 
*  "  Geschichte  des.Alterthums,"  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  105  and  ff. 


6o  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

quently,  between  the  powers  of  Light  and  Darkness, 
— the  gods  and  the  demons, — is  a  prominent  ground- 
feature  of  the  primeval  Aryan  conception  of  nature, 
as  of  every  primitive  religion  in  the  world.  With 
the  Eranians  that  opposition  became  the  one  funda- 
mental law,  to  the  absorption  and  almost  exclusion 
of  the  many  picturesque  mythical  details  and  inci- 
dents with  which  the  poetry  of  other  Aryan  nations 
is  adorned  to  overloading.  The  hard  struggle  for  a 
life  hedged  in  with  dangers,  crowded  with  hardships 
and  dii^culties,  had  weaned  them  from  the  idling 
contemplation,  the  toying  with  fancies  and  images, 
which  is  the  essence  of  a  myth-making  poetry.  They 
drew  the  great  Battle-Myth  down  to  the  earth,  and 
embodied  it  in  the  contrasts  with  which  their  own 
land  teemed,  thus  preparing  the  way  for  the  dualism 
which  is  the  keynote  of  their  national  religion. 

4.  There  was  no  need  of  inventing  new  symbols  to 
express  this  tendency.  It  was  sufficient  to  empha- 
size the  conflict,  which  formed  the  groundwork  of 
the  oldest  Aryan  mythical  religion.  The  ancient 
Sky-god  and  his  everlasting  foe,  the  Cloud-Serpent — 
the  Obscurer  of  Light, — became  the  chief  persons  in 
whom  all  good  and  all  harm  were  embodied,  and 
gradually  drove  the  other  mythical  agents  into  the 
background.  As  we  trace  the  ancient  myths  in 
what  is  left  us  of  the  Avesta,  we  are  struck  with  the 
great  development  given  to  the  spiritual  meaning  of 
them,  which,  in  the  sister  race  of  India,  is  only  occa- 
sional and  subordinate,  the  physical  significance  de- 
cidedly predominating. 

5.  Thus  we  shall  have  some  difificulty  at  first  in 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  6l 

identifying  Ahura-Mazda,  the  supreme  God,  the 
Creator  of  the  world  and  of  the  other  gods,  the  master 
of  all,  the  inspirer  and  maintainer  of  holiness  and 
righteousness,  such  as  he  appears  throughout  the 
Avesta,  with  the  old  Aryan  sky-gods  Dyaus  and 
Varuna.  It  is  only  long  and  attentive  study,  bring- 
ing out  little  touches  scattered  through  the  texts,  few 
and  far  between,  that  enables  us  to  trace  this  grand 
spiritual  conception  to  its  first  physical  source.  And 
when  these  touches  are  found,  they  are  such  as  to 
place  the  original  identity  beyond  a  doubt.  The  very 
name  of  the  one  is  a  combination  of  titles  given  to 
the  other.  The  Sanskrit  ASURA  becomes,  by  the 
law  of  Eranian  pronunciation,  Ahura,*  with  the 
same  sense  of  "  Lord."  And  of  all  the  by-names 
given  to  Varuna,  that  of  "  omniscient,  all-knowing," 
was  adopted  as  one  of  the  names  of  the  Deity — 
Mazda.  Thus  "Ahura-Mazda  "  literally  means  "the 
Lord  of  great  knowledge."  The  material  attributes 
with  which  he  is  invested  at  once  betray  his  origin. 
In  one  of  those  conversations  with  Zarathushtra, 
which  are  the  accepted  form  of  revelation  through- 
out the  Avesta,  he  is  made  to  say : 

"  I  maintain  that  sky  there  above,  shining  and  seen  afar,  and  en- 
compassing the  earth  all  around.  It  looks  like  a  palace  that  stands 
built  of  a  heavenly  substance,  firmly  established,  with  ends  that  lie 
afar,  shining  in  its  body  of  ruby  over  the  three  worlds  ;  it  is  like  a 
garment  inlaid  with  stars,  made  of  a  heavenly  substance,  that 
Mazda  puts  on  .  .  .  and  on  no  side  can  the  eye  perceive  the 
end  of  it.f 

*  There  is  the  same  exchange  of  letters  in  Greek  and  Latin  :  Greek 
hepta  =  Latin  septem  (seven)  ;  Greek  herpeton  =  Latin  serpens,  etc. 
f  Yesht  XIIL 


62  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA, 

To  whom  but  a  sky-god  can  this  magnificent  de- 
scription apply  ?  aside  from  the  star-broidered  gar- 
ment, which  also  belongs  to  Varuna.  (See  p.  40.) 
The  sky  is  also  poetically  called  his  body,  and  so  he 
is  said  to  be  "  the  one  of  all  whose  body  is  the  most 
perfect,"  "  the  finest  of  body,"  and  homage  is  paid 
to  his  "  most  beauteous  body,"—"  we  worship  his 
entire  body."  Still  more  conclusive  is  the  text  in 
which  homage  is  paid  to  "  the  resplendent  Sun,  the 
eye  of  Ahura-Mazda  "  *  (See  pp.  40, 41).  Atar,  Fire 
(originally  the  celestial  Fire — Lightning  ;  see  pp.  40, 
42),  is  invariably  spoken  of  and  addressed  as  "  Son  of 
Ahura-Mazda,"  alone  of  all  the  Yazatas  or  "  divine 
beings,"  while  the  Sacred  Waters  are  invoked  in  a 
hymn  as  follows : 

"  We  worship  this  earth  which  bears  us  together  with  thy  wives, 
O  Ahura-Mazda  !     .     .     ." 

"  O  ye  Waters  !  we  worship  you,  you  that  are  showered  down, 
and  you  that  stand  in  pools  and  vats,  ye  female  Ahuras  {Ahuranis 
of  Ahura),  that  serve  us  in  helpful  ways,  well-forded  and  full- 
flowing.      .      .      ."     (See  pp.  45,  46.) 

Lastly  his  name  is  joined  with  that  of  MiTHRA,  the 
pure  Daylight  (of  whom  more  anon),  in  a  manner  and 
with  a  persistency  which  makes  the  couple  correspond 
exactly  to  the  Varuna-Mitra  of  the  Rig-Yeda:  (See 
p.  41.)  "I  announce  and  complete  my  sacrifice  to 
the  two,  to  Ahura  and  to  Mithra,  the  lofty,  and  the 
everlasting  and  the  holy"  (Yasna  L,  ii);  "I  desire 
to  approach  Ahura  and  Mithra  with  my  praise,  the 
lofty,  eternal,  and  the  holy  two"  (Yasna  IL,  11). 
And   before  the  battle  the  worshipper  addresses  to 

*  Yasna  I.,  II, 


AJiVAJV  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  63 

the  divine  couple  the  following  poetical  invocation  : 
"  May  Mithra  and  Ahura,  the  high  gods,  come  to  us 
for  help,  when  the  poniard  lifts  up  its  voice  aloud  " 
(by  clashing  with  another),  "  when  the  nostrils  of  the 
horses  quiver,  when  the  strings  of  the  bows  whistle 
and  shoot  sharp  arrows.  .  .  ."  It  is  most  instruc- 
tive thus  convincingly  to  trace  out  step  by  step  the 
proofs  of  the  material  and  mythical  origin  of  the 
great  Eranian  God,  then  to  follow  the  process  of 
evolution  which  raised  him  into  the  loftiest,  purest, 
most  immaterial  abstraction.  But  we  must  leave 
him  awhile  before  the  race's  religious  consciousness 
reaches  that  highest  point,  to  follow  up  more  traces 
or  transformations  of  Aryan  myths  in  the  Avesta. 
It  will  be  pleasantest  to  seek  the  gods  in  their 
luminous  homes,  and,  to  find  our  way  thither,  we 
shall  have  to  look  up  a  bit  of  celestial  geography. 

6.  Far  away  in  the  East,  beyond  the  ridges  that 
rise  in  tiers  upon  tiers,  marking  the  stations  of  the 
race's  immemorial  migrations,  in  its  descent  into  the 
plains  of  later  Ariana,  is  the  Holy  Mountain,  the 
Hara-Berezaiti  ("  Lofty  Mountain  "),  known  in  the 
Pehlevi  period  and  to  the  Parsis  in  the  corrupted 
form  of  Alborj.  It  rises  from  the  earth,  beyond 
the  sphere  of  the  stars  and  that  of  the  sun,  into  the 
sphere  of  Endless  Light,  Ahura-Mazda's  own,  where 
he  dwells  in  the  "  shining  Garo-NMANA"  ("  the  Abode 
of  Song").  This  is  the  Mother  of  Mountains;  al- 
the  2,244  mountains  that  are  on  the  earth  have 
grown  out  of  it,  and  it  is  "connected  with  the  sky." 
Its  summit  is  bathed  in  eternal  glory  and  is  a  seat 
of  everlastinfj  bliss.     "  There  come  neither  night  nor 


64  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

darkness,  no  cold  wind  and  no  hot  wind,  no  deathful 
sickness,  no  uncleanness  made  by  the  Daevas  (de- 
mons), and  the  clouds  cannot  reach  up  unto  the 
Haraiti-Bareza."  It  has  several  notable  peaks.  That 
of  Taera  is  the  centre  of  the  world  and  around  it 
the  stars,  the  moon,  and  the  sun  revolve.  Hence 
the  hymn : 

"  Up  !  rise  and  roll  along,  thou  swift-horsed  sun,  above  Hara- 
Berezaiti,  and  produce  light  for  the  world,  and  mayest  thou,  O  man  ! 
rise  up  there  "  (if  thou  art  to  abide  in  Garo-nmana) — "  along  the  path 
made  by  Mazda,  along  the  way  made  by  the  gods,  the  watery  way 
they  opened."     ("  Watery  "  because  of  the  clouds.) 

"  Up  !  rise  up,  thou  moon  .  .  .  rise  up  above  Hara-Berezaiti  " 
(the  rest  as  above). 

"  Up  !  rise  up,  ye  stars  .  .  .  rise  up  above  Hara-Berezaiti" 
(the  rest  as  above).     (Vendidad  XXI.*) 

7.  At  the  foot  of  the  celestial  part  of  the  Hara, 
towards  the  south,  stretches  the  Sea  Vouru-Kasha, 
which  is  no  other  than  the  old  Aryan  "  heavenly 
ocean  "  or  cloud-reservoir  of  the  waters  which  de- 
scend on  the  earth  as  rain.  The  same  hymn  con- 
tains an  invocation  to  the  Waters,  which  shows  a  re- 
markable comprehension  of  the  continual  interchange 
of  moisture  between  the  sky  and  earth  : 

"  As  the  Sea  Vouru-Kasha  is  the  gathering  place  of  waters,  rise  up, 

*  Alborj,  still  further  modified  into  Elburz,  became  the  name  of 
an  earthly  mountain  range,  that  which  skirts  the  southern  coast  of  the 
Caspian.  This  is  a  patent  instance  of  a  proceeding  familiar  to  all 
nations  when  they  reach  the  stage  of  transition  from  myth  to  reality  : 
that  of  transferring  mythical,  heavenly  geography  to  earth — a  pro- 
ceeding which  goes  hand  in  hand  with  the  transformation  of  gods 
and  myths  into  epic  heroes  and  mythical  legend.  The  Elburz,  with 
its  towering  peak,  Mt.  Demavend,  is  shrouded,  in  the  Eranian's 
eyes,  with  a  mysterious  sacredness  and  awe  ;  it  is  the  scene  of  various 
superhuman  adventures  in  the  Eranian  Epos. 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA.  65 

go  up  the  aerial  way  and  go  down  on  the  earth  ;  go  down  on  the  earth 
and  go  up  the  aerial  way.      Rise  up  and  roll  along  !  " 

This  sea  is,  moreover,  everlastingly  replenished  by 
the  bountiful  flow  of  the  celestial  spring  Ardvi-Sura 
Anahita,  which  rushes  from  the  peak  HUKAIRYA,  of 
the  Hara-Berezaiti,  and  supplies  all  the  rivers  of  the 
earth  with  pure,  abundant,  and  wholesome  waters: 

"  The  large  river,  known  afar,  that  is  as  large  as  the  whole  of  the 
waters  that  run  along  the  earth  ;  that  runs  powerfully  from  the  height 
of  Hukairya  down  to  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha.  All  the  shores  of  the  sea 
Vouru-Kashaare  boiling  over,  all  the  middle  of  it  is  boiling  over,  when 
she  runs  down  there.     .     .     .  " 

And  the  waters  of  this  same  celestial  sea  everlast- 
ingly feed  and  j»rotect  the  Tree  of  Life  and  Immor- 
tality, the  White  Haoma  or  Gaokerena,  which 
God  himself  planted  on  "  high  Haraiti  "  (the  same 
as  Hara-Berezaiti),  and  placed  in  the  centre  of 
Vouru-Kasha  together  with  another  divine  tree 
which  contains  the  seeds  of  all  the  plants  that 
grow  on  earth.  Of  this  heavenly  and  immortal 
Haoma  (Aryan  Soma),  the  Haoma  that  grows  in 
the  mountains  of  Eran  and  from  which  is  pressed 
the  golden-colored  liquor  used  at  sacrifices  is  the 
earthly  representative,  and  from  it  derives  its  heal- 
ing and  "  death-removing  "  properties.  As  for  the 
seeds  of  the  plants,  they  are  carried  down  to  earth 
by  the  rain.  The  summits  of  Hara-Berezaiti  being 
the  abode  of  the  gods,  who  have  their  several  man- 
sions there,  it  is  but  right  that  there  also  should  be 
the  store-houses  of  the  choicest  blessings  which  the 
gods  bestow  on  men — the  waters  and  vegetation. 
^.  Anthropomorphism,  in  its  most  direct,  rank- 


(^  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

est  form,  is  the  very  essence  of  Indo-Eranian  and 
later  Hindu  speculation,  so  that,  among  the  Aryas  of 
India,  Mythology  entirely  outgrew  and,  during  a  long 
period  of  time,  almost  smothered  Religion.*  In  the 
sober,  earnest-minded  sister  race,  the  tendency  was 
all  the  other  way — from  anthropomorphism  to  spirit- 
ual abstraction.  Therefore  Aryan  divinities  when 
they  turn  up  in  the  Avesta,  generally  retain  only  a  few 
characteristic  features,  while  the  mythical  exuberance 
of  incident  and  description  is  greatly  cut  down.  Thus 
we  saw  the  Sun  entitled  the  "  swift-horsed."  That 
the  Sun  has  a  chariot  and  horses  is  an  understood 
thing  ever  since  poetical  forms  of  speech  first  began 
to  crystallize  into  myths.  Eran  retained  the  stand- 
ing by-word,  without,  however,  playing  on  it  the  in- 
finite variety  of  changes  which  we  shall  find  in  the 
Rig-Veda  on  this  one  theme.  There  is  only  one 
short,  insignificant  yesht  (hymn)  to  the  "  undying, 
shining,  swift-horsed  Sun,"  and  all  the  worshipper 
finds  to  say  in  praise  of  it  is  the  matter-of-fact  re- 
mark that  its  light  purifies  creation,  and  that,  should 
it  not  rise  up,  the  daevas  (demons)  would  destroy 
all  things  and  the  heavenly  Yazatas  (good  spirits) 
would  find  no  way  of  withstanding  or  repelling  them. 
Again — the  Dawn  opening  the  gates  of  heaven  and 
preceding  the  Sun  on  her  golden  chariot  drawn  by 
fleet  horses,  is  an  image  as  old  as  the  first  attempts 
at  imaginative  poetry  and  the  theme  of  a  hundred 
stories,  for,  in  her  character  as  the  fairest  of  heavenly 
maidens,  she  is  the  favorite  heroine  of  Aryan  nature- 
myth.  The  Eranian  has  preserved  only  the  shortest 
*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  331-334. 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA.  6/ 

and  driest  mention  of  her,  in  a  prayer  to  be  recited 
at  break  of  day,  and  where  she  is  called  "  the  beau- 
tiful Dawn,  the  shining,  of  the  fleet  and  glittering 
horses,"  and  is  said  to  wake  men  to  their  work  and 
to  give  light  within  the  house. 

9.  Far  more  accentuated  and  developed  is  the 
mythical  individuality  of  the  Eranian  Mithra,  when 
separated  from  his  original  companion.  One  of.  the 
longest  and  finest  hymns  (Yesht  X.)  is  devoted  to 
him.  In  order  to  fully  comprehend  the  mythical 
traits  in  it,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Mithra, 
like  his  Aryan  namesake,  is  Light,  the  pure  light  of 
day,  which  fills  the  space  apart  from  the  splendor  of 
the  sun,  whence  his  standing  surname  "  lord  of  wide 
pastures  "  (heavenly  space)  ;  whence  also  he  is  said 
both  to  precede  the  sun  at  his  rising  and  to  follow 
him  after  his  setting  ;  he  is  the  morning  and  evening 
twilight,  the  dawn  and  the  gloaming : 

"  The  first  of  the  heavenly  gods  who  reaches  over  the  Hara,  be- 
fore the  undying,  swift-horsed  sun  ;  who  foremost,  in  golden  array, 
takes  hold  of  the  beautiful  summits,  and  from  thence  looks  with  a 
beneficent  eye  over  the  abodes  of  the  Aryans,  where  the  val- 
iant chiefs  draw  up  their  many  troops  in  array,  where  the 
high  mountains,  rich  in  pastures  and  waters,  yield  plenty  to 
the  cattle  ;  where  the  deep  lakes  with  salt  waters  stand  ;  where 
wide-flowing  rivers  swell  and  hurry. 

"  Who  goes  over  the  earth,  all  her  breadth  over,  after  the  setting 
of  the  sun,  touches  both  ends  of  this  wide,  round  earth,  whose  ends 
lie  afar,  and  surveys  every  thing  that  is  between  the  earth  and  the 
heavens. 

"  He  who  moves  along  all  the  Karshvars,*  a  Yazata  unseen,  and 
brings  glory. 

*  The  earth  is  divided  into  seven  regions  or  Karshvars,  of  which 
Eran  is  the  largest  and  central  one. 


68  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

"  For  whom  the  Maker,  Ahura-Mazda,  has  built  up  a  dwelling  on 
the  Hara-Berezaiti,  the  bright  mountain  around  which  the  many 
stars  revolve,  .  .  .  and  he  surveys  the  whole  of  the  material 
world  from  the  Haraiti-Bareza. 

' '  With  his  arms  lifted  up  towards  Immortality '"  (towards  the  abode 
of  the  Immortals),  "  Mithra,  the  lord  of  wide  pastures,  drives  forward 
from  the  shining  Garo-nmana,  in  a  beautiful  chariot  .  .  .  wrought 
by  the  Maker,  Ahura-Mazda,  inlaid  with  stars  and  made  of  a  heav- 
enly substance. 

"  Four  stallions  draw  that  chariot,  all  of  the  same  white  color, 
living  on  heavenly  food,  and  undying.  The  hoofs  of  their  fore-feet 
are  shod  with  gold  ;  the  hoofs  of  their  hind-feet  are  shod  with 
silver  ;  all  are  yoked  to  the  same  pole,  and  wear  the  yoke,  and  the 
cross-beams  of  the  yoke  are  fastened  with  hooks  of  metal,  beauti- 
fully wrought.     .      .      ." 

lO.  Mithra,  being  in  his  essence  Light,  is  the  nat- 
ural foe  of  the  daevas, — i.  c,  the  fiends  of  Darkness, 
who  flee  from  before  him  in  fear,  or  fall  under  the 
strokes  of  his  never  failing  weapons ;  he  is  the  pro- 
tector and  rescuer  of  the  heavenly  cattle  which  the 
demons  are  forever  stealing  and  driving  into  their 
robber  holds.  This  most  primeval  of  Aryan  myths 
is  reproduced  with  beautiful  entirety  in  a  verse  of 
Mithra's  Yesht. 

"  The  cow  driven  astray  invokes  him  for  help,  longing  for  the 
stables  :  When  will  that  Bull,  Mithra,  the  lord  of  wide  pastures, 
bring  us  back  and  make  us  reach  the  stables  ?  When  will  he  turn 
us  back  on  the  right  way  from  the  den  of  Druj  (a  name  for 
"  demon  ")  whither  we  were  driven  ?" 

He  is  therefore  essentially  a  warrior,  the  mightiest 
of  warriors,  and  a  patron  of  warriors,  who  gives  vic- 
tory in  a  righteous  cause: 

"A  warrior,  with  a  silver  helm,  a  golden  cuirass,  who  kills  with 
the   poniard,   strong,    valiant,     .     ,     .     the   warrior  of   the   white 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  69 

horse,  of  the  sharp,  long  spear,  the  quick  arrows.  .  .  .  Whom 
Ahura-Mazda  has  established  to  maintain  and  look  over  all  this 
moving  world,  .  .  .  who,  never  sleeping,  wakefully  guards  the 
creation  of  Mazda,  ...  he  who  stands  up  upon  the  earth  as 
the  strongest  of  all  gods,  the  most  valiant,  the  most  energetic,  the 
swiftest  of  all  gods,  the  most  fiend-smiting  of  all  gods." 

II.  So  much  for  the  obviously  physical  part  of  the 
myth.  The  transition  to  the  spiritual  side  is  won- 
derfully easy  and  logical.  MiTHRA  IS  LiGHT,  AND 
Light  is  all-pervading  ;  therefore  Mithra  is 

ALL-SEEING  AND  ALL-KNOWING  ;  Ahura  Mazda  gave 
him  a  thousand  senses  and  ten  thousand  eyes  to  see, 
he  is  the  undeceivable  watcher  of  men  ;  or  else  he 
has  ten  thousand  ears  and  ten  thousand  spies. 
Mithra  is  Light,  and  Light  is  Truth,  and 
Truth  is  Good.  The  Daevas  are  Darkness, 
and  Darkness  is  Lie,  and  Lie  is  Evil.  This 
most  simple  and  primary  conception,  perhaps  the 
only  absolutely  universal  one,  and,  in  all  probability, 
the  very  first,  because  the  most  obvious,  equation 
between  the  Visible  and  Invisible  that  occurred  to 
thinking  man  all  the  world  over,  at  once  transfers  the 
struggle,  the  championship,  and  the  victory  from  the 
material  into  the  spiritual  world.  He  who  is  the 
Light  of  Absolute  Truth  is  of  his  nature  the  foe  and 
destroyer  of  Deceit,  and  Faithlessness,  and  Wrong, 
and  all  the  evil  brood  of  Darkness,  and,  as  a  practi- 
cal application,  the  protector  in  open  warfare  of  all 
whose  cause  is  righteous,  and,  above  all,  the  supreme 
guardian  of  covenants  and  punisher  of  bad  faith. 
He  who  eludes  or  breaks  the  bonds  of  a  contract  is 
a  "  deceiver  of  Mithra," — but  Mithra  is  "the  Unde- 
ceivable," his  wrath  and  the  curse  of  all  good  men  is 


JO  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

sure  to  light  on  the  foolish  evil-doer,  whom  he  routs 
and  paralyzes :  * 

"  On  whatever  side  there  is  one  who  has  lied  to  Mithra,  on  that 
side  Mithra  stands  forth,  angry  and  offended,  and  his  wrath  is  slow 
to  relent.  Those  who  lie  unto  Mithra,  however  swift  they  may  be 
running,  cannot  outrun  him  ;  riding,  cannot  outride  him  ;  driving, 
cannot  outdrive  him.  The  spear  that  the  foe  of  Mithra  flings  darts 
backward  ;  .  .  .  and  even  though  it  be  flung  well,  even  though 
it  reach  the  body,  it  makes  no  wound — the  wind  drives  away  the 
spear  that  the  foe  of  Mithra  flings.  .  .  .  He  takes  away  the 
strength  from  their  arms,  the  swiftness  from  their  feet,  the  eye-sight 
from  their  eyes,  the  hearing  from  their  ears.  .  .  .  He  gives 
herds  of  oxen  and  male  children  to  that  house  wherein  he  has  been 
satisfied  ;  he  breaks  to  pieces  those  in  which  he  has  been  offended. 
Sad  is  the  abode,  unpeopled  with  children,  where  dwell 
men  who  have  lied  unto  Mithra.  .  .  .  The  grazing  cow  goes  a 
sad,  straying  way,  driven  along  the  vales  of  the  Mithra-deceivers  ; 
they  stand  on  the  road,  letting  tears  run  over  their  chins.     .     .     ." 

This  is  why  Mithra  is  said  to  be  "  both  good  and 
bad  to  men,  to  keep  in  his  hands  both  peace  and 
trouble  for  nations."  He  stands  a  watchful  guardian 
of  the  covenant,  spoken  or  unspoken,  which  rules 
the  relations  between  friends  and  kindred,  between 
partners,  between  husband  and  wife,  master  and 
pupil,  father  and  son,  between  nations. 

"  The  man  without  glory,  led  astray  from  the  right  way,  thinks  thus 
in  his  heart :  '  That  careless  Mithra  does  not  see  all  the  evil  that  is 
done,  nor  all  the  lies  that  are  told.'  But  I  think  thus  in  my  heart  : 
'  Should  the  earthly  man  hear  a  hundred  times  better,  he  would  not 
hear  so  well  as  the  heavenly  Mithra,  who  has  a  thousand  senses  and 
sees  every  one  that  tells  a  lie.'  " 

Nor    is    the    faithful   observance   of   contracts    or 

*  Compare  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  171. 


AJ?VAJV  MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA.  J I 

promises  confined    to  fellow-Mazdayasnians  ("  wor- 
shippers of  Mazda  ").     It  is  expressly  said  : 

"  Break  not  the  contract,  neither  the  one  that  thou  hadst  entered 
into  with  one  of  the  unfaithful,  nor  the  one  that  thou  hadst  entered 
into  with  one  of  thy  own  faith.  For  Mithra  stands  both  for  the  faith- 
ful and  for  the  unfaithful."* 

12.  A  spirited  picture  is  that  which  the  great 
Yesht  brings  before  us,  of  Mithra  going  forth  in  his 
heavenly  chariot,  escorted  by  his  helpers  and  friends, 
to  do  battle  against  the  Powers  of  Evil  and  their 
human  followers  : 

"  His  chariot  is  embraced  and  uplifted  by  Holiness  ;  the  Law  of 
Mazda  opens  a  way,  that  he  may  go  easily  ;  four  heavenly  steeds, 
white,  shining,  seen  afar,  beneficent,  endowed  with  knowledge, 
swiftly  carry  him  along  the  heavenly  space.  ...  At  his  right  hand 
drives  the  good,  holy  Sraosha  (Obedience  to  the  Law  of  Mazda) ; 
at  his  left  drives  the  tall  and  strong  Rashku  (Uprightness,  Jus- 
tice) ;  on  all  sides  of  him  .  .  .  the  Fravashis  of  the  faithful 
(the  Spirits  of  the  Departed).  .  .  .  Behind  him  drives  Atar  (Fire), 
all  in  a  blaze.    ..." 

Before  him  and  close  by  him  run  two  dread  be- 
ings— Verethraghna  (Victory),  and  the  "  Strong 
Cursing  Thought  of  the  Wise,"  both  described  in 
identical  words  as  wearing  the  shape  of  a  "  sharp- 
toothed,  sharp-jawed  boar,  that  kills  at  one  stroke, 
pursuing,  strong  and  swift  to  run,  and  rushing  for- 
ward."     Mithra  is  well  armed  for  the  fray — 

"Swinging  in  his  hands  a  club  with  a  hundred  knots,  a  hundred 
edges,  that  rushes  forward  and  fells  men  down  ;  a  club  cast  out  of 
red  brass,  .  .  .  the  strongest  of  all  weapons,  the  most  victorious  of 
all  weapons." 

*  It  is  noteworthy  that  mithra  at  last  becomes  a  common  noun, 
meaning  "  contract,"  and  used  as  such  in  every-day  speech. 


72  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

His  chariot,  too,  is  a  well-supplied  armory  :  there 
are  a  thousand  bows  with  their  arrows,  vulture- 
feathered,  with  golden  points ;  a  thousand  spears 
and  as  many  steel  hammers;  a  thousand  two-edged 
swords  and  as  many  maces  of  iron.  All  these 
weapons  are  described  as  "  well-made,"  and  as  "  go- 
ing through  the  heavenly  spaces  and  falling  on  the 
skulls  of  the  daevas."  It  would  seem,  from  the  way 
it  is  put,  that  they  fly  of  their  own  accord,  self-sped, 
to  do  havoc  on  the  fiends.  Such  self-acting  divine 
weapons  are  very  plentiful  in  the  Aryan  mythology 
of  India.  Well  may  the  worshipper  exclaim  :  "  Oh  ! 
may  we  never  fall  across  the  rush  of  Mithra,  the 
lord  of  wide  pastures,  in  his  anger  !  " 

13.  This  picture  of  a  god  riding  to  battle,  with  a 
full  description  of  his  armor,  his  chariot,  his  band 
of  followers,  etc.,  is  a  thoroughly  Aryan  one. 
Each  Aryan  god  has  his  own  "turn-out,"  and  not 
one  is  passed  over  in  the  Rig-Veda.  The  anthropo- 
morphism of  the  conception  is  rank.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  Eranian  Mithra,  it  presents  a  feature 
characteristic  of  the  race,  and  which,  in  its  develop- 
ment, caused  a  complete  revolution.  It  will  have 
been  observed  that  the  followers  of  Mithra  are  no 
mythical  persons,  i.  c,  no  phenomena  of  nature 
turned  into  persons  ;  but,  consistently  with  the  spirit- 
ual transformation  of  the  myth,  they  are  abstract 
ideas,  or  moral  qualities  personified  :  Holiness,  Up- 
rightness, Obedience  to  the  religious  Law  ;  lastly, 
the  "  Curse  of  the  Wise."  This  is  not  Myth — it  is 
Allegory,  and  one  such  instance  is  sufficient  to 
illustrate  the  difference  between  the  two  notions  and 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  73 

the  meaning  of  the  two  words.  In  one  of  Mithra's 
band,  Myth  and  Allegory  meet,  or  rather  it  is  shown 
how  easily  and  smoothly  Myth  can  glide  into  Allegory. 
Verethraghna,  the  genius  of  Victory,  is  certainly 
an  allegorical  personage,  an  abstract  idea  which  a 
capital  initial  converts  into  a  person  ;  for  the  word 
vcretJiragna  is  a  common  noun  which  means  "  vic- 
tory." But  that  word  itself  has  a  mythical  import, 
being  none  other  than  the  Eranian  transliteration  of 
the  '•'•  vritraJidn'''  ("  Vritra-killer ")  of  the  Rig-Veda, 
the  title  of  honor  given  to  various  "  fiend-smiting  " 
deities,  but  most  frequently  to  Indra,  the  champion 
demon-killer  of  them  all.  (See  p.  46.)  This  original 
meaning  must  have  been  quite  forgotten  before  the 
name  changed  into  a  common  noun  meaning  "vic- 
tory "  in  general,  and  became  personified  once  more, 
no  longer  mythically,  but  allegorically. 

14.  This  tendency  to  close  the  eyes  to  the  ever- 
varying  play  of  physical  nature  and  turn  them  in- 
ward, to  the  contemplation  of  high  moral  abstrac- 
tions, till  these  seem  almost  tangible  realities,  is  the 
indication  of  a  very  serious  mind  and  the  key  to  the 
transformation  which  the  myth-religion  of  the  an- 
cient Aryas  underwent  at  the  hands  of  their  sterner 
Eranian  descendants.  The  most  notable  instance  of 
such  allegorical  transformation  is  that  practised  on 
Ahura-Mazda  himself.  The  original  identity  with 
the  old  sky-god  once  having  subsided  out  of  sight, 
preserved  only  in  a  few  traditional  and  unconscious 
forms  of  speech,  his  spiritual  nature  became  the  sub- 
ject of  earnest  and  profound  speculation.  They 
sought  to  express  his  various  attributes  by  a  variety 


74  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

of  names,  such  as  "  Perfect  Holiness,"  "  Creator," 
or  "  Maker  of  the  material  world,"  "  Keeper  and 
Maintainer,"  the  Best  of  Sovereigns,"  "  the  Bestower 
of  Health,"  "All-Weal,"  "  He  who  does  not  deceive 
and  is  not  deceived,"  etc.;  lastly,  "the  Beneficent 
Spirit,"  Spenta-Mainyu,  a  name  which  is  used  pref- 
erably to  all  others,  as  fully  designating  his  essence 
and  nature,  and  opposing  him  to  the  Other  One, 
the  Spirit  of  Evil.  Certain  qualities  and  properties 
seemed  especially  to  belong  to  him,  or  to  be  awarded 
by  him,  such  as  (i)  good  thoughts,  (2)  perfect  holi- 
ness, (3)  excellent  sovereignty,  (4)  piety,  (5)  health, 
(6)  immortality  ;  and  by  dint  of  being  prayed  _/(?r,  as 
Ahura-Mazda's^z/Zi",  came  to  be  prayed  /<?,  as  his  min- 
istering spirits,  created  by  him.  This,  the  inevitable 
anthropomorphic  tendency  asserting  itself,  brought 
about  one  of  the  most  characteristic  institutions  of 
Mazdeism, —  the  heavenly  council  of  the  Bountiful 
Immortals,  the  Amesha-Spentas  (the  Amsha- 
SPANDS  or  archangels  of  the  modern  Parsis).  They 
are  seven  in  number,  Ahura-Mazda  being  one  of 
them,  though  he  is  said  to  have  created  the  others. 
When  they  are  invoked  or  referred  to,  it  is  often 
quite  difficult  to  distinguish  whether  their  names  are 
used  in  their  literal  sense  or  as  persons.  The  former, 
however,  is  most  frequently  the  case  in  the  earliest 
period,  that  of  the  Gathas,  where  the  allegory  is 
always  very  transparent.  It  is  only  in  time  that  it 
hardens  into  solid  personifications,  when  the  Amesha- 
Spentas  are  not  only  separate  and  individual  spirits, 
but  have  certain  clearly  defined  functions  assigned 
to  them  in  the  general  guardianship  of  the  world. 


A/^VAA^  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  75 

15.  Before  we  examine  into  the  nature  of  the 
Amesha-Spentas  as  a  body  and  their  relations  to 
their  chief  and  maker,  it  will  be  well  to  review  them 
individually,  specifying  their  original  meaning  and 
later  development. 

1st.  Ahura-Mazda,  Spenta-Mainyu, — the  Benefi- 
cent Spirit,  uncreated,  i' creator  of  all  things." 

2nd.  Vohu-Mano, — the  "  Good  Mind  "  or  "  Be- 
nevolent Mind  " — that  state  of  mind  which  is  con- 
ducive to  peace  and  good-will  toward  men  generally, 
and  gives  the  wisdom  of  moderation,  of  conciliation. 
At  a  later  period  he  became  the  protector  of  cattle, 
cattle-raising  being  an  essentially  peaceful  and  kindly 
avocation,  which,  moreover,  can  prosper  only  in 
times  of  peace. 

3rd.  Asha-Vahishta, — "  Best  "  or  "  Perfect  Holi- 
ness," that  conforms  in  every  particular,  "  in  thought, 
in  word,  and  in  deed,"  to  the  law  of  Mazda,  espe- 
cially as  regards  religious  observances  ;  later  the  pro- 
tector of  Fire,  as  the  embodiment  of  Purity  and  Wor- 
ship, of  ritual  and  priestly  functions ;  in  reality  the 
Law  itself,  the  Order  which  rules  the  world. 

4th.  KhshathrA-Vairya,  —  "  Excellent  Sover- 
eignty," the  power  which  comes  from  God,  and 
therefore  is  beneficent,  merciful,  and  the  guardian  of 
order  and  law.  Becomes  the  protector  of  metals, 
possibly  because  royalty  has  always  been  in  the  habit 
of  reserving  to  itself  the  wealth  drawn  from  the 
earth,  especially  gold  and  silver. 

5th.  Spenta-Armaiti,  —  "  Holy  Piety,"  patient 
and  humble  simple-mindedness.  Also  Earth  person- 
ified, or  the  Spirit  of  Earth,  and  that  at  a  very  early 


'j6  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

period,  as  early  as  the  Gathas.  The  only  female 
Amcsha-Spenta,  whose  sex,  name,  and  attributions 
are  easily  explained  as  a  reminiscence  of  a  rather 
misty  Aryan  deity,  whom  we  find  in  the  Rig-Veda 
under  the  name  of  Aramati,  and  who,  like  her 
younger  Eranian  namesake,  personifies  both  the 
Earth  and  the  virtue  of  devotion. 

6th  and  7th.  HaurvatAt  AND  AmeretAt, — 
"  Health  and  Immortality," — a  divine  couple  almost 
never  mentioned  or  invoked  separately,  and  who,  by  a 
process  at  once  logical  and  poetical,  remained  closely 
united  in  the  functions  assigned  to  them  in  the  ma- 
terial world, — that  of  guardians  of  the  waters  and 
the  plants  on  earth.  The  wholesomeness  of  pure 
running  water,  both  in  itself  and  as  provoking  and 
fostering  vegetation,  and  its  healing  properties,  nat- 
urally commended  it  to  the  care  of  the  Genius  of 
Health  ;  while  the  trees  and  plants,  with  their  latent 
and  ever-replenished  v^itality,  have  always  been  a 
meet  symbol  of  immortality.  And  one  must  have 
travelled  or  lived  in  lands  of  drought  and  barrenness, 
where  the  course  of  the  tiniest  streamlet  is  marked 
by  its  fringe  of  verdure  or  foliage,  sometimes  no 
wider  than  itself,  where  not  a  spring  or  well  but  is 
shaded  by  its  palm  or  plane  tree,  fully  to  realize  the 
aptness  of  the  conception  which  unites  the  running 
water  and  the  growing  plant  into  the  inseparable 
couple,  "  Haurvatat  and  Ameretat,"  who  are  also 
said  to  give  food  its  rich  and  pleasant  taste. 

16.  It  is  quite  evident  from  several  passages  that 
the  Amesha-Spentas  were  originally  one  with  Ahura- 
Mazda,  who,  on  being  asked  by  Zarathushtra  which 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  ']'] 

of  all  holy  words  is  the  strongest,  the  most  effective, 
the  most  fiend-smiting,  replies  : 

"Our  Name,  O  Spitama  Zarathushtra  !  who  are  the  Amesha- 
Spentas, — that  is  the  strongest  part  of  the  Holy  Word,  that  is  the 
most  victorious,  that  is  the  most  glorious,  the  most  effective,  the 
most  fiend-smiting,  that  is  the  best-healing.     .     .     ."     (Yesht  I.) 

The  most  decisive  evidence  is  contained  in  the 
following  passage  : 

" .  .  .  The  luminous  ones,  .  .  .  who  are  all  seven  of  one 
thought,  who  are  all  seven  of  one  speech,  who  are  all  seven  of  one 
deed,  .  .  .  whose  father  aud  commander  is  the  same,  namely, 
the  Maker,  Ahura-Mazda.  Who  see  one  another's  souls,  thinking 
of  good  thoughts,  thinking  of  good  words,  thinking  of  good  deeds, 
thinking  of  Garo-nmana,  and  whose  ways  are  shining.  Who  are  the 
makers  and  governors,  the  shapers  and  overseers,  the  keepers  and 
preservers  of  the  creations  of  Ahura-Mazda.  .  .  ."  (Yeshts 
XIII.  and  XIX.) 

The  lines  in  italics  have  clearly  been  added  when 
the  conception  of  Mazda's  supremacy  had  reached 
the  height  of  an  almost  absolute  monotheism,  and 
no  Power  or  Being  could  be  allowed  to  exist  who 
was  not  created  by  him,  even  though  they  share  the 
act  of  creation  with  him.  In  the  same  spirit  Ahura- 
Mazda,  in  one  hymn,  is  made  to  present  the  Immor- 
tals to  his  prophet,  singly  and  by  name,  thus  :  "  Here 
is  Vohu-mano,  my  creature,  O  Zarathushtra  !  Here 
is  Asha-Vahishta,  my  creature,  O  Zarathushtra," 
etc.  (Yesht  I.)  It  is  in  consequence  of  the  same 
afterthought  that  he  is  made  to  say  of  Mithra, 
originally  as  much  his  companion  and  equal  as  the 
Aryan  Mitra  is  of  Varuna  :  "  Verily,  zvhen  I  created 
Mithra,  lord  of  wide  pastures,  I  created  him  as 
worthy  of  sacrifice,  as  worthy  of  prayer,  as  myself, 


78  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

Ahura-Mazda."  Thus  again,  and  consistently  with 
what  gradually  became  the  leading  idea  of  Mazdeism, 
the  name  of  every  god,  however  powerful,  however 
exalted  and  reverenced,  is  frequently  accompanied,  as 
a  reminder,  by  the  epithet  "  created  by  Ahura." 
Therefore  it  is  that  all  the  "  created  "  gods  ceased  in 
time  to  be  thus  styled,  and,  together  with  all  benefi- 
cent spirits,  were  gathered  under  the  designation  of 
Yazatas — the  YZEDS,  Angels,  of  the  modern  Parsis. 
Mithra,  Verethraghna,  Sraosha,  Atar,  etc.,  are  Ya- 
zatas ;  so  are  the  Sun,  the  Moon,  and  all  good  spirits, 
whether  representing  natural  forces  or  abstractions. 
Their  number  is  unlimited: 

"  When  the   light   of   the  sun  waxes  warmer     .      .      .     then   up 
stand  the  heavenly  Yazatas,   by  hundreds  and  thousands     . 
they  pour  its  glory  upon  the  earth  made  by  the  Ahura." 

They  all  dwell  in  the  Endless  Light,  eternal  and  un- 
created,— "  the  Garo-nmana,  the  abode  of  Ahura- 
Mazda,  the  abode  of  the  Amesha-Spentas,  the  abode 
of  all  the  other  holy  beings." 

17.  As  Ahura  surely  was  himself,  once  on  a  time, 
the  original  one  "  Bountiful  Immortal,"  so  this  title 
was  probably  bestowed  on  other  beneficent  beings, 
before  the  ancient  sacredness  of  the  number  seven, 
and,  possibly  a  dim  reminiscence  of  the  Aryan 
Adityas,  of  whom  Varuna  was  the  chief,  (see  p.  41) 
confined  it  to  Ahura  and  his  six  doubles.  In  one 
passage  Atar  is  called  "  the  most  helpful  of  the 
Amesha-Spentas,"  but  it  is  a  soHtary,  queer  survival. 
His  proper  titles  are,  "  Son  of  Ahura-Mazda  "  and 
"  most  great  Yazata."  As  the  one  who  is  nearest  to 
man,  who  sits  on  his  hearth,  the  kindly  bond  of  family 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA.  Jg 

and  state,  he  is  addressed  and  spoken  of  with  a  res- 
pectful tenderness,  an  affectionate  familiarity,  which 
is  sometimes  very  pretty  in  its  7iawete. 

"  Atar,  the  son  of  Ahura-Mazda,  lifts  up  his  voice  to  all  those  for 
whom  he  cooks  their  evening  meal  and  their  morning  meal.  From 
all  those  he  wishes  a  good  offering.  .  .  .  Atar  looks  at  the 
hands  of  all  those  who  pass  by  :  '  What  does  the  friend  bring  to  his 
friend  ?  What  does  he  who  comes  and  goes  bring  to  him  who  stays 
motionless  ?  '  And  if  the  passer-by  brings  him  wood  holily  brought 
then  Atar,  the  son  of  Ahura-Mazda,  well  pleased  with  him 
and  not  angry,  and  fed  as  required,  will  thus  bless  him  :  '  May 
herds  of  oxen  grow  for  thee,  and  increase  of  sons.  .  .  .  mayest 
thou  live  on  in  joy  of  thy  soul  all  the  nights  of  thy  life.'  This  is  the 
blessing  that  Atar  speaks  unto  him  who  brings  him  dry  wood,  well 
examined  by  the  light  of  the  day,  well  cleansed  with  godly  intent." 

For  if  to  the  Athravans — the  of^cially  instituted 
class  of  priests — was  committed  the  care  of  the 
sacred  fires  in  the  public  places  of  worship,  each 
householder's  first  religious  duty  was  to  tend  the 
fire  of  his  own  hearth,  to  trim  and  clean  it,  and  never 
suffer  it  to  go  out.  This  was  a  more  arduous  task 
than  appears  at  first  sight,  as  the  flame  was  to  be  fed 
not  only  constantly,  but  daintily,  with  small  quanti- 
ties, continually  renewed,  of  driest,  finely-cut  chips 
of  the  best,  and  in  part  fragrant,  wood,  such  as 
sandal,  "  well  examined  by  the  light  of  the  day,  and 
well  cleansed,"  so  that  no  impurity  of  any  kind 
should  pollute  the  sacred  element ;  besides  which  a 
good  Mazdayasnian  had  to  get  up  three  times  in  the 
night  (as  the  Parsis  do  now,  for  that  matter)  to  look 
after  it. 

"  In  the  first  part  of  the  night,  Atar,  the  son  of  Ahura-Mazda, 
calls  the  master  of  the  house  for  help,  saying  :  '  Up  !  arise,  thou 
master  of  the  house  !  put  on  thy  girdle  and  thy  clothes,  wash  thy 


8o  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

hands,  saw  wood,  bring  it  unto  me,  and  let  me  burn  bright  with 
the  clean  wood,  carried  by  thy  well-washed  hands.  Here  comes 
Aji  (the  Fiend-Serpent,  Darkness),  made  by  the  daevas,  who  is 
about  to  strive  against  me  and  wants  to  put  out  my  life." 

And  so  "  in  the  second,"  and  "  in  the  third  part  of 
the  night." 

1 8.  In  the  persistent  enmity  between  the  demon 
Aji  and  Atar,  which  endures  throughout  the  Avesta 
(with  the  exception  of  the  Gathas),  we  easily  recog- 
nize the  struggle  between  the  Aryan  Fiend-Serpent 
Ahi  and  the  Storm-god,  as  embodied  in  his  principal 
weapon — the  Lightning.  In  one  of  the  Eranian  ver- 
sions of  the  conflict,  very  dramatic  in  form,  the 
latter  even  resumes  his  Vedic  name  of  "  Son  of  the 
Waters,"  and  is  called  indiscriminately  Atar,  or 
ApanM-Napat  (see  p.  45) ;  it  is  where  the  two  ever- 
lasting adversaries  do  battle  for  the  light  which 
hides  in  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha,  the  Cloud-Sea.  The 
transformation  which  this  simple  myth — one  of  the 
oldest — undergoes  from  the  spiritualizing  process  of 
Eranian  thought  is  very  remarkable :  the  light, 
originally  meant  in  a  literal  sense,  becomes  a  subtle 
and  sacred  splendor — the  HVARENO,  or  "  Glory," — 
a  peculiar  and  visible  golden  sheen,  which  must  be 
imagined  as  surrounding  the  head  and  shoulders  of 
persons  endowed  with  it,  after  the  manner  of  the 
halo  around  the  heads  of  saints  and  angels  in  modern 
paintings.  This  "  awful  Kingly  Glory," — probably 
a  portion  or  reflection  of  the  eternal,  uncreated 
Endless  Light  wherein  God  dwells, — belongs,  in 
the  first  place,  to  Ahura-Mazda,  to  the  Amesha- 
Spentas,  and  to  all  the  Yazatas,  then  "  to  the  Aryan 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  8 1 

nations,  born  and  unborn,"  and  lastly  to  every  law- 
ful Aryan  king  as  a  sign  of  divine  grace,  and  per- 
haps, in  mythical  times,  of  divine  descent.  He  to 
whom  it  "  cleaves  "  is  assured  of  wealth,  of  power, 
prosperity,  and  victory  ;  himself  unconquerable,  he 
exterminates  his  enemies.  But  the  Hvareno  cannot 
be  seized  by  violence  or  usurped  by  aliens ;  and,  if  a 
king  endowed  with  it  tells  a  lie,  it  straightway  passes 
away  from  him.  Certain  Yeshts  give  instances  of 
both  these  occurrences,  taken  from  the  rich  store  of 
the  national  mythical  epos.  The  most  amusing  is 
the  story  of  that  "  most  crafty  Turanian  rufifian, 
Frangrasyan,"  who  thrice  stripped  himself  naked 
and  plunged  into  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha,  "  wishing  to 
seize  that  Glory  that  belongs  to  the  Aryan  nations." 
But  the  Glory  escaped  him  every  time,  until  at  last 
he  "  rushed  out  of  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha,  thinking 
evil  thoughts,"  and  was  fain  to  confess  :  "  I  have  not 
been  able  to  conquer  the  glory  that  belongs  to  the 
Aryan  nations,  born  and  unborn,  and  to  the  holy 
Zarathushtra  !  "  A  most  ingenious,  half  mythical, 
half  allegorical  rendering  of  unsuccessful  Turanian 
invasions, 

19.  But  the  Eranian  Storm-god  par  excellence  is 
TiSHTRYA,  the  star  Sirius,  known  also  as  the  Dog- 
Star.  The  Eranians  very  curiously  associated  rain 
with  certain  stars,  which  are  said  to  contain  the 
"  seed  of  the  waters."  Over  these — and,  indeed,  it 
would  appear,  over  all  the  stars — Tishtrya  is  set  as 
chief — ratu : 

"We  sacrifice  unto  Tishtrya,  the  bright  and  glorious  star,  who 
moves  in  light  with  the  stars  that  have  in    them  the  seed  of    the 


82  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSTA. 

waters,  whom  Ahuia-iMazda  has  established  as  a  lord  and  overseer 
above  all  stars.     .     .     ."     (Yesht  VIII.) 

This  star  presides  over  the  dog-days,  which,  in 
hot  chines,  are  immediately  followed  by  heavy 
rains.  Hence  its  rising  is  invoked  with  passionate 
longing  by  the  people  of  a  region  where  the  streams 
are  all  rain-fed  and  dry  up  in  the  rainless  season, 
while  most  of  them  do  not  flow  into  other  streams, 
or  lakes,  but  are  greedily  and  profitlessly  sucked  up 
by  the  sand  of  the  desert. 

"We  sacrifice  unto  Tishtrya,  the  bright  and  glorious  star,  for 
whom  long  flocks,  and  herds,  and  men,  looking  forward  for  him  and 
deceived  in  their  hope.  '  When  shall  we  see  him  rise  up,  the 
bright  and  glorious  star  Tishtrya  ?  When  will  the  springs  run  with 
waves  as  thick  as  a  horse's  size  and  still  thicker?  Or  will  they 
never  come?     . 

"We  sacrifice  unto  Tishtrya,  the  bright  and  glorious  star,  for 
whom  long  the  standing  waters,  and  the  running  spring-waters,  the 
stream-waters,  and  the  rain-waters.  '  When  will  the  bright  and 
glorious  Tishtrya  rise  up  for  us  ?  When  will  the  springs,  with  a 
flow  and  overflow  of  waters,  thick  as  a  horse's  shoulder,  run  to  the 
beautiful  places  and  fields,  and  to  the  pastures,  even  to  the  roots  of 
the  plants,  that  they  may  grow  with  a  powerful  growth  ?     .      .     .' 

"  We  sacrifice  unto  Tishtrya,  the  bright  and  glorious  star,  whose 
rising  is  watched  by  men  who  live  on  the  fruits  of  the  year,  by  the 
chiefs  of  deep  understanding  ;  V)y  the  wild  beasts  in  the  mountains, 
by  the  tame  beasts  that  run  in  the  plains  ;  they  watch  him  as  he 
comes  up  to  the  country,  for  a  bad  year  or  for  a  good  year,  thinking 
in  themselves  :   '  How  shall  the  Aryan  countries  be  fertile  ?  '  " 

The  dog-days  are  the  hottest  and  driest  of  the 
year ;  it  is  the  time  of  Tishtrya's  great  conflict 
against  APAOSHA,  the  Drought-Fiend,  a  conflict  in 
which  he  is  several  times  worsted  before  he  comes 
off  victorious  at  the  last.     The  god  appears  in  three 


ARYAN  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  83 

different  shapes — for  ten  nights  in  that  of  a  beautiful 
youth,  for  ten  in  that  of  a  golden-horned  bull,  and 
for  the  last  ten  as  a  beautiful  white  horse  with 
golden  ears  and  golden  caparison.  It  is  in  this  shape 
that  he  gives  the  final  battle  to  his  demon  antago- 
nist, who  rushes  down  to  meet  him  by  the  Cloud- 
Sea — Vouru-Kasha, — in  the  shape  of  an  ugly  black 
horse,  with  black  ears  and  tail. 

"  They  meet  together,  hoof  against  hoof.  .  .  .  They  fight 
together  for  three  days  and  three  nights.  And  then  the  Daeva 
Apaosha  proves  stronger  than  the  bright  and  glorious  Tishtrya  ;  he 
overcomes  him.  And  Tishtrya  flees  from  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha.  .  . 
He  cries  out  in  woe  and  distress.     .     .     ."     (Yesht  VIII.) 

He  cries  out  for  sacrifices  to  be  offered  him,  to 
"bring  strength  "  to  him,  and, having  received  them, 
rushes  back  to  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha.  But  it  is 
only  at  the  third  encounter  that  he  finally  routs  the 
Black  Horse, 

"  He  makes  the  sea  boil  up  and  down  ;  he  makes  the  sea  stream 
this  and  that  way.  .  .  .  All  the  shores  are  boiling  over  ;  all  the 
middle  of  it  is  boiling  over.  .  .  .  And  vapors  rise  up  above  the 
middle  of  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha.  .  .  .  Then  the  wind  blows  the 
clouds  forward,  bearing  the  waters  of  fertility,  so  that  the  friendly 
showers  spread  wide  over  ;  they  spread  helpingly  and  friendly  over 
the  seven  Karshvars.      .     .     ."     (Yesht  VIII.) 

But  there  is  not  water  enough  for  all  the  Aryan 
countries,  and  the  distribution  of  it  becomes  the  oc- 
casion of  another  conflict  between  the  warriors  of 
heaven,  the  Fravashis  of  the  faithful  (Departed 
Spirits,  corresponding  to  the  Pitris  of  the  Hindus, 
see  p.  53-54)- 

"The  good,  strong,  beneficent  Fravashis  of  the  faithful;  with 
helms  of  brass,  with  weapons  of  brass,  with  armor  of  brass  ;  who 


84  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

struggle  in  the  fights  for  victory  in  garments  of  light,  arraying  the 
battles  and  bringing  them  forwards,  to  kill  thousands  of  daevas.    .   .    . 

"  When  the  waters  come  up  from  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha, 
then  forwards  conic  tlie  awful  Fravashis  of  the  faithful,  many  and 
many  hundreds,  many  and  many  thousands,  many  and  many  tens  of 
thousands,  seeking  water  for  their  own  kindred,  for  their  own  bor- 
ough, for  their  own  town,  for  their  own  country,  and  saying  thus  : 
'  May  our  own  country  have  a  good  store  and  full  joy  ! ' 

"  They  fight  in  the  battles  that  are  fought  in  their  own  place  and 
land,  each  according  to  the  place  and  house  where  he  dwelt  of  yore  ; 
they  look  like  a  gallant  warrior,  who,  girded  up  and  faithful,  fights 
for  the  hoard  he  has  treasured  up. 

"  And  those  of  them  who  win,  bring  waters  to  their  own  kindred, 
to  their  own  borough,  to  their  own  town,  to  their  own  country,  say- 
ing thus  :      '  May  my  country  grow  and  increase  !  '  " 

20.  As  the  Fravashis  are  also  supposed  to  help 
their  own  people  in  their  earthly  wars,  and  to  per- 
form all  sorts  of  good  ofifices  for  the  material  world 
in  general,  it  will  be  seen  that  prudence  no  less  than 
affection  prompted  their  living  descendants  to  pay 
them  honor  and  offer  them  gifts.  Nor  are  they  dif- 
ficult to  propitiate.  For  they  are  gentle,  and  ready 
to  confer  benefits  ;  "  their  friendship  is  good,  and 
lasts  long  ;  they  like  to  stay  in  the  abode  where  they 
are  not  harmed  by  its  dwellers,"  and  they  "  never  do 
harm  first,"  though  "  their  will  is  dreadful  unto  those 
who  vex  them."  The  last  few  days  of  the  year(ioth 
-20th  of  March)  are  specially  devoted  to  them,  and 
at  that  time 

"  .  .  .  they  come  and  go  through  the  borough  .  .  .  they 
go  along  there  for  ten  nights,  asking  thus  :  '  Who  will  praise  us  ? 
Who  will  offer  us  a  sacrifice  ?  Who  will  meditate  upon  us  ?  Who 
will  bless  us  ?  Who  will  receive  us  with  meat  and  clothes  in  his 
hand,  and  with  a  prayer  worthy  of  bliss  ?  Of  which  of  us  will  the 
name  be  taken  fox   invocation  ?  '     .     .     .      And  the  man  who  offers 


AJ^VAJV  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  85 

them  up  a  sacrifice,  with  meat  and  clothes  in  his  hand,  and  a  prayer 
worthy  of  bliss,  the  awful  Fravashis  of  the  faithful,  satisfied,  un- 
harmed, and  unoffended,  bless  thus  :  '  May  there  be  in  this  house 
flocks  of  animals  and  men  !  May  there  be  a  swift  horse  and  a  solid 
chariot  !  May  there  be  a  man  who  knows  how  to  praise  God  and 
rule  in  his  assembly  !  ' 

21.  It  is  not  the  Fravashis  alone  who  ask  thus 
openly  and  eagerly  for  gifts  and  offerings.  We  saw 
the  Storm-god  Tishtrya  crying  out  for  sacrifices  to 
"  bring  him  strength,"  when  sorely  pressed  by  the 
Drought-Fiend  Apaosha.  So  does  Mithra,  wishing 
for  strength  to  perform  his  appointed  work,  ever  cry 
out  to  Ahura-Mazda  : 

"  Who  will  offer  me  a  sacrifice  ?  ...  If  men  would  worship 
me  with  a  sacrifice  in  which  I  were  invoked  by  my  own  name,  as 
they  worship  the  other  Yazatas,  .  .  .  I  would  come  to  the  faith- 
ful at  the  appointed  time  of  my  beautiful  immortal  life." 

Ardvi-Sura  Anahita,  as  she  drives  forward  on  her 
chariot,  drawn  by  four  white  horses,  and  holding  the 
reins,  longs  for  the  worship  of  men,  and  thinks  in  her 
heart  :  "  Who  will  praise  me  ?  Who  will  offer  me 
a  sacrifice,  with  libations  cleanly  prepared  and  well- 
strained,  together  with  the  Haoma  and  meat  ?  " 

22.  The  old  Aryan  conception  of  the  efficacy,  the 
compelling  force  of  sacrifice,  asserts  itself  with  great 
emphasis  in  the  Avesta,  where  we  see  not  only  the 
famous  mythical  heroes  sacrificing  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  bullocks,  horses,  and  sheep  to  various 
deities,  principally  Haoma,  Ardvi-Sura  Anahita,  and 
Vayu,  when  asking  for  some  special  boon,  but  the 
gods  offering  sacrifices  to  each  other  on  the  heights 
of  the   Hara-Berezaiti.     Nay,   Ahura-Mazda  himself 


86  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

is  no  exception,  and  is  said  to  offer  a  sacrifice  to  this 
or  that  divinity — by  him  created  ! — to  request  his  or 
her  assistance  in  the  protection  of  the  material  world 
against  the  evil  powers.  This  glaring  inconsistency 
can  be  explained  only  by  the  different  stages  of  a 
religion,  in  which  Ahura-Mazda  was  a  god  among 
other  gods  before  he  became  the  One  Supreme  God 
and  Creator. 

23.  Nor  has  the  belief  in  the  conjuring  efficacy  of 
prayers  and  sacred  texts — the  Manthra — at  all 
abated  in  the  Eranian  period.  The  Manthra  is 
again  and  again  spoken  of  and  invoked  as  a  divine 
person.  So  are  the  Gathas,  and  also  certain  prayers 
which  are  considered  as  particularly  holy  and  won- 
der-working. But  the  most  potent  spell  of  all,  the 
most  healing,  most  fiend-smiting,  lies  in  a  prayer 
known  under  the  Parsi  name  (corrupt)  of  HoNOVER, 
called  in  the  Avesta  the  Ahuna-Vairya,  a  prayer 
which  a  devout  Parsi  even  now  repeats  dozens  of 
times  every  day  on  every  possible  occasion  of  life. 
This  famous  prayer  is  written  in  so  obscure  a 
language  that  a  final  and  satisfactory  rendering  of  it 
has  not  yet  been  achieved,  though  every  Avestan 
scholar  has  attempted  a  translation.  The  discrepan- 
cies between  these  translations  are  so  great  and  the 
sense  remains  so  uncertain  still,  that  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  make  a  selection  between  them,  and  to 
give  them  all  would  be  confusing  and  unprofitable. 
The  most  extravagant  magic  powers  are  ascribed  to 
this  sacred  text,  which  Ahura-Mazda  is  said  to  have 
first  uttered  "  before  the  creation  of  heaven,  before 
the  making  of  the  waters,  and  the  plants,  and  the 


J/eVAA'-  MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA.  87 

four-footed  kine  and  the  holy  biped  man,  and  before 
the  sun,"  and  to  have  revealed  to  Zarathushtra,  who 
recited  it  first  to  mortal  men. 

"  This  word,"  Ahura-Mazda  is  made  to  say,  "  is  the  most  em- 
phatic of  the  words  which  ever  have  been  pronounced,  or  which  are 
now  spoken,  or  which  shall  be  spoken  in  future,  for  the  eminence  of 
this  utterance  is  such  a  thing,  that  if  all  the  corporal  and  living 
world  should  learn  it,  and  learning  it  should  hold  fast  by  it,  they 
would  be  redeemed  from  their  mortality  !  " 

The  sacred  names  of  Ahura-Mazda,  the  Amesha- 
Spentas,  and  some  others,  share  this  power  of  incan- 
tation, as  we  saw  above.     (See  p.  76.) 

24.  The  process  of  allegorical  transformation 
which  gradually  permeated  the  whole  mythic  system 
of  Eran,  here  found  a  most  grateful  field.  The  con- 
juring spell  hurled  against  the  physical  fiends  repre- 
senting the  evil  powers  of  material  nature,  were 
changed  into  the  spiritual  weapons  of  prayer  and 
obedience  to  the  holy  Law,  used  with  infallible  suc- 
cess against  the  spiritual  fiends, — Anger,  Rapine, 
Sloth,  and,  above  all,  the  Spirit  of  Lies, — who  dwell 
in  every  man's  own  breast.  That  is  the  club,  ever 
uplifted  agains  the  daevas,  which  the  Yazata  Sraosha 
carries  (the  personified  Obedience  to  Mazda's  Law), 
he  "whose  very  body  is  the  Law,"  and  who  there- 
fore is  the  most  actively  militant  adversary  of  the 
daevas.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  Ahuna-Vairya  is 
said  to  smite  the  fiends  "  as  hard  as  a  stone  large  as 
a  house."  When  he  hears  it  recited,  the  Arch-Fiend 
himself  cowers  and  writhes  and  shrinks,  and  hides  in 
the  bowels  of  the  earth. 

25.  For  the    Serpent,   Ahi,  the  mythical  Aryan 


88  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

dragon  that  guards  the  fastnesses  where  the  stolen 
cows  or  maidens  are  locked  away,  now  called  Ajl  or 
AjI-Dahaka  (the  "  Biting  Snake  "),  touched  by  the 
same  magic  rod  of  spiritual  transformation,  hence- 
forth personated  moral  evil  in  all  its  odiousness  and 
ugliness,  and  began  to  be  called  "  Angra-Mainyu," 
the  "  Destructive  Sprit,"  in  direct  opposition  to 
Spenta-Mainyu,  the  Beneficent  or  Life-giving  Spirit. 
By  this  time  system-making  had  become  a  habit  of 
the  Eranian  mind,  and  as  every  system,  being  an 
artificial  construction,  requires  symmetr}^,  Angra- 
Mainyu  (better  known  under  the  corrupt  later  form, 
Ahriman),  from  being  one  of  the  names  of  the 
original  Serpent,  grew  into  a  separate  abstraction,  an 
Arch-fiend,  the  exact  counterpart  of  Spenta-Mainyu 
or  Ahura-Mazda :  the  one  all  Light,  Truth,  Life,  and 
Good  ;  the  other  all  Darkness,  Lie,  Death,  and  Evil. 
And  henceforth  the  world  was  divided  between 
them.  Both  being  possessed  of  creative  power,  all 
that  was  good  in  it,  material  or  spiritual,  was  the 
work  of  Spenta-Mainyu  ;  all  that  was  evil,  of  Angra- 
Mainyu.  In  this  manner  those  profound  but  simple- 
minded  thinkers  got  out  of  the  terrible  puzzle  of 
accounting  for  the  existence  of  evil  in  the  world,  for 
they  could  not  comprehend  the  necessity  of  it,  and 
therefore  would  not  admit  that  it  could  have  been 
created  by  the  All-good  and  All-wise  Being.  The 
two  spirits  must  have  existed  from  the  beginning, 
independent  of  each  other,  and  the  world  and  life,  as 
we  see  them,  are  nothing  but  the  manifestation  of 
their  eternal  enmity  and  conflict.  When  moral  specu- 
lation had  attained  this  height  the  race  was  ripe  for 


ARYAN   MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA.  89 

a  prophet,  to  give  the  gradually  evolved  new  con- 
sciousness the  form  and  consistency  of  a  faith, 
to  purify  it  and  separate  it  from  the  dross  of  ancient 
myth  that  still  clung  round  it  and  clogged  the 
spiritual  progress  of  the  aspiring  but  inconsistent 
popular  mind. 

26.  To  carry  out  the  title  of  this  chapter,  it 
should  end  with  a  review  of  such  Aryan  myths  as 
became  the  groundwork  of  the  Eranian  Heroic  Epos, 
one  of  the  richest  in  the  world,  so  far  as  they  have 
found  a  place  in  the  Avesta.  There  are  many  such, 
but  in  a  very  fragmentary  condition  and  too  much 
out  of  the  scope  of  the  present  work  to  be  consid- 
ered. One,  however,  is  given  with  great  complete- 
ness, although  the  different  traits  and  incidents  are 
scattered  in  many  places  of  the  book,  and  is  too  im- 
portant and  interesting  to  be  overlooked.  It  is  the 
myth  of  YiMA,  the  first  king,  the  Eranian  rendering 
of  the  Aryan  myth  of  Yama,  originally  the  Setting 
Sun,  then  the  first  mortal  and  King  of  the  Dead  (see 
pp.  52-53).  The  story,  ancient  in  itself,  shows  traces 
of  a  late  rehandling  in  the  way  it  is  told,  but  must  be 
given  as  we  find  it,  as  it  would  be  spoiled  by  being 
picked  to  pieces. 

"  O  Maker  of  the  material  world  !  "  Zarathushtra 
is  made  to  ask  of  Ahura-Mazda,  "  who  was  the  first 
mortal  before  myself,  with  whom  thou  didst  con- 
verse, whom  thou  didst  teach  the  law?"  Ahura- 
Mazda  answers :  "  The  fair  Yima,  the  great  shep- 
herd " ;  and  proceeds  to  tell  that  he  offered  Yima  to 
be  the  preacher  and  bearer  of  his  law  to  men,  but 
Yima  declined,  not  deemine  himself  fit.    Then  Ahura- 


90  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

Mazda  bade  him  rule  his  world,  and  watch  over  it,  and 
make  it  thrive.  Yima  accepted  the  task,  and  Ahura- 
Mazda  brought  him  a  golden  ring  and  poniard.* 
He  sacrificed  on  the  sacred  height  Hukairya  to 
Ardvi-Sura  Anahita,  Haoma,  Vayu,  asking  for  vari- 
ous boons  which  they  granted.  He  became  the 
sovereign  lord  of  countries,  and  ruled  not  only  over 
men,  but  over  the  daevas,  and  Mazda's  Kingly  Glory 
(Hvareno)  was  around  him.  That  was  the  Golden 
Age  of  the  world.  In  his  reign  there  was  neither 
cold  nor  heat,  neither  old  age  nor  death,  neither  hot 
wind  nor  cold  wind,  and  there  was  great  fatness  and 
abundance  of  flocks  in  the  world  created  by  Mazda. 
Herds  and  people  were  free  from  death,  plants  and 
waters  were  free  from  drought ;  fathers  and  sons 
walked  about  equally  perfect  in  shape,  which  was 
that  of  youths  of  fifteen  years.  So  were  things  while 
Yima  ruled,  he  of  the  many  flocks,  and  that  was 
during  a  thousand  years.  Of  these,  three  hundred 
years  had  passed  away,  and  the  earth  was  replenished 
with  flocks  and  herds,  with  men  and  dogs  and  birds, 
and  red,  blazing  fires,  and  there  was  no  more  room 
for  flocks,  herds,  and  men.  Then  Yima,  being 
warned  by  Ahura-Mazda,  pressed  the  earth  with  the 
golden  ring  and  bored  it  with  the  poniard,  speaking 
thus  :  "  O  Spenta-Armaiti  (see  p.  75),  kindly  open 
asunder  and  stretch  thyself  afar,  to  bear  flocks  and 
herds  and  men."  And  the  earth,  at  Yima's  bidding, 
grew  one  third  larger  than  it  was  before,  and  there 
came  flocks  and  herds  and  men,  at  his  will  and  wish, 
as  many  as  he  wished.     When  six  hundred  years  of 

*  So  Darmesteter.   DeHarlez  renders  "a  golden  plough  and  an 
ox-goad." 


A/eVAJV  MYTHS  IN  THE   A  VESTA.  9I 

his  sway  had  passed  away,  Yima  again  bade  the 
earth  open  and  stretch,  and  again  when  nine  hun- 
dred years  had  passed  away,  and  each  time  the  earth 
grew  by  one  third  of  its  original  size.  When  he  had 
reigned  a  thousand  years,  Ahura-Mazda  called  a 
great  meeting  in  Airyana-Vaeja,  and  came  thither 
with  all  the  gods ;  thither  also  came  Yima  with  the 
most  excellent  mortals. 

"  And  Ahura-Mazda  spake  unto  Yima,  saying  :  '  O  fair  Yima,  son 
of  Vivanghat  !  Upon  the  material  world  the  fatal  winters  are  go- 
ing to  fall,  that  shall  bring  the  fierce,  foul  frost,  that  shall  make 
snowflakes  fall  thick  and  lie  deep  on  the  highest  tops  of  mountains. 
And  all  the  three  sorts  of  beasts  shall  perish  :  those  that  live  in  the 
wilderness,  and  those  that  live  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and 
those  that  live  in  the  bosom  of  the  dale  under  the  shelter  of  stables. 
Before  that  winter  those  fields  would  bear  plenty  of  grass  for  cat- 
tle ;  now  with  floods  that  stream,  with  snows  that  melt,  it  will  seem 
a  happy  land  in  the  world,  the  land  wherein  footprints  even  of  sheep 
maybe  seen.    Therefore  make  thee  a  Vara  (an  enclosure)    .      .    .'" 

Here  follow  minute  instructions  :  "  Thou  shalt  do 
so  and  so,"  which,  being  complied  with,  are  repeated 
word  for  word  with  change  of  tense — past  instead  of 
future, — after  the  manner  of  ancient  epic  narrative. 
We  give  the  narrative  as  the  more  lively  form  : 

"  And  Yima  made  a  Vara     .      .      .     to  be  an  abode   for  men,  to 

be  a  fold  for  flocks.     There  he  made  waters  flow  in  a  bed  a  hdthra 

long  (about  a  mile)  ;  there  he  settled  birds  by  the  everlasting  banks 

that  bear  never-failing  food.      There  he  established  dwelling-places. 

There  he  brought  the   seeds  of  men  and  women,*  of  the 

*  To  be  put  in  the  ground  and  grow  in  due  time.  According  to 
the  later  Cosmogony  of  the  Bundehesh,  the  first  human  couple  grew 
up  in  the  shape  of  a  shrub,  then  blossomed  into  human  form  and 
separated.  So  are  the  different  kinds  of  animals  supposed  to  have 
come  from  seed.  We  saw  above  that  the  stars  are  said  to  contain 
the  seeds  of  the  waters. 


92  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

greatest,  best,  and  finest  kinds  on  this  earth  ;  there  he  brought  the 
seeds  of  every  kind  of  cattle,  of  the  greatest,  best,  and  finest  kinds 
on  this  earth  ;  there  he  brought  the  seeds  of  every  kind  of  tree,  of 
the  greatest,  best,  and  finest  kinds  on  this  earth  ;  there  he  brought 
the  seeds  of  every  kind  of  fruit,  the  fullest  of  food  and  sweetest  of 
odor.  All  those  seeds  he  brought,  two  of  every  kind,  to  be  kept 
inexhaustible  there,  so  long  as  those  men  shall  stay  in  the  Vara. 
And  there  was  no  humpbacked,  none  bulged  forward  there  ;  no  im- 
potent, no  lunatic,  no  poverty,  no  lying,  no  meanness,  no  jealousy  ; 
no  decayed  tooth,  no  leprous  to  be  confined,  nor  any  of  the  brands 
with  which  Angra-Mainyu  stamps  the  bodies  of  mortals. 
Every  fortieth  year,  to  every  couple  two  are  born,  a  male  and  a 
female.  And  thus  it  is  for  every  sort  of  cattle,  and  the  men  in  the 
Vara,  which  Yima  made  live  the  happiest  life.      .     .      ." 

Some  commentators  say  they  live  there  150  years, 
others,  that  they  never  die.  The  latter  come  near- 
est to  the  mythical  truth  of  the  story,  as  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Yima's  Vara  originally  answered  to 
Yama's  seat  of  bliss,  and  its  inhabitants  to  the  Pitris 
— the  souls  of  the  departed.  The  Avesta  narrative 
adds, — evidently  a  late  appendage  to  the  old  myth, 
— that  a  wonderful  bird  brought  the  Law  of  Mazda 
into  the  Vara  and  preached  it  there.  The  mythical 
legends  of  India  know  of  several  such  wise  and 
speech-endowed  birds. 

27.  There  is  another  version  of  the  end  of  Yima's 
rule,  a  more  human  and  very  tragical  one,  which  has 
been  adopted  in  the  Heroic  Epos  of  Eran.  It  is  also 
mentioned  in  the  Avesta.  There  came  a  day  when 
Yima  fell  and  sinned.  He  "  began  to  find  delight  in 
words  of  falsehood  and  untruth."  In  fact,  it  is 
stated  plainly,  that  he  told  a  lie.  But  what  the  lie 
was  the  Avesta  does  not  inform  us.  Epic  tradition 
however  does.    Seeing  both  men  and  daevas  subject 


A/iVAJV  MYTHS  IN  THE  A  VESTA.  93 

to  his  rule,  his  heart  was  lifted  up  in  pride,  and  he 
declared  himself  to  be  a  god.  From  this  moment 
Mazda's  Kingly  Glory  (the  Hvareno)  flew  away  from 
him  in  the  shape  of  a  raven — one  of  the  visible 
forms  which  Verethraghna,  the  Genius  of  Victory,  is 
said  to  assume.  Yima  also  taught  men  to  kill  inno- 
cent animals  and  eat  their  flesh,  which  was  another 
grievous  wrong.  Three  times  the  Glory  flew  away 
from  him  ;  he  lost  his  sovereignty,  wandered  about 
an  outcast,  and  finally  perished  miserably,  being 
sawed  in  two,  according  to  the  Avesta,  by  his  own 
brother ;  according  to  the  heroic  legend,  by  his  mor- 
tal foe,  the  wicked  usurper  ZOHAK  —  the  Persian 
corrupt  form  of  "  Aji-Dahak," — the  primeval  Serpent 
being,  like  the  other  personages  of  the  heavenly 
drama,  brought  down  to  earth  and  presented  in  a 
human  incarnation. 

28.  It  is  very  curious  that  one  detail  of  the  old 
Aryan  myth  of  Yama  should  have  survived  in  Eran, 
in  the  practical  form  of  a  religious  ceremony,  which 
is  enjoined  on  the  followers  of  Zoroaster,  and  strictly 
observed  by  them  to  this  day.  The  reader  will  re- 
member Yama's  dogs,  "  brown,  broad-snouted,  four- 
eyed,"  who  scent  out  those  who  are  to  die  and  drive 
them  to  the  presence  of  the  dread  king,  at  the  same 
time  guarding  them  from  the  dangers  and  fiends  that 
beset  the  dark  road  they  travel.  (See  p.  53).  The 
Avestan  Law  prescribes  that  "  a  yellow  dog  with  four 
eyes "  shall  be  brought  to  the  side  of  any  person 
that  has  just  died,  and  made  to  look  at  the  corpse, 
as  the  look  of  the  four-eyed  dog  is  supposed  to  drive 
away  the  impure  demon,  (Nasu),  that  strives  to  enter 


94 


MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA^ 


it  and  take  possession  of  the  clay  tenement,  which, 
from  the  moment  that  life  leaves  it,  becomes  the 
property  of  Angra-Mainyu,  in  order  thence  to  work 
contamination  and  harm  on  all  who  approach  it.  As 
it  maybe  supposed  that  some  difficulty  was  found  in 
procuring  the  animal  in  question,  the  law  makes  the 
following  qualifying  concession  :  "  A  yellow  dog 
with  four  eyes,  or  a  white  dog  with  yellow  ears." 
The  latter  variety  being  more  generally  on  hand) 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  conscientious  Parsis  from 
performing  this  time-honored  ceremony,  which  they 
call  the  Sagdid,  and  of  the  mythical  origin  and 
import  of  which  they  are,  of  course,  profoundly 
ignorant.* 

*  For  the  quotations  from  the  Vendidad  and  the  Lesser  Avesta 
the  translation  of  Mr.  James  Darmesteter  has  been  and  will  be  used 
throughout. 


,^t  *<^ 

^•^ 

J5^^^#0'vi:;^'|r'^^^3^^^,  ^*^*lx>^V^^-^si= 

^^?^^^    \ 

ri/^ 

^§^i^wX\'f/5wf^X>^ 

E^ 

fj) 

AM\^&^ 

^1^^ 

?f 

^Sjj^^^ 

'^'^'^^j^'iCy'    (f^o^^s    i2r'<^>>' "'»4=^ 

^""^  if^ 

3t^ 

V. 


THE  GATHAS. — -THE  YASNA  OF  SEVEN  CHAPTERS. 


I.  Mazdayasnians  and  Daevayasnians,  — 
"  Worshippers  of  God  and  worshippers  of  the 
Fiends"  ;  such  is  the  division  of  mankind  according 
to  the  Zoroastrian  faith.  There  can  be  no  middle 
way.  Whoever  is  not  with  Mazda  is  against  him. 
Whoever  does  not  enlist  to  fight  the  good  fight  with 
Spenta-Mainyu,  the  Spirit  who  is  all  Life,  neces- 
sarily swells  the  ranks  of  Angra-Mainyu,  the  Spirit  who 
is  all  Death.  The  material  world  is  divided  between 
them,  and  its  various  phenomena  are  but  the  visible 
manifestation  of  the  war  they  wage  against  each 
other.  That  war  has  its  parallel  in  the  spiritual 
world.  There  the  battle-ground  is  in  every  man's 
own  breast,  and  the  stake  is  every  man's  own  soul. 
But  not  without  the  man's  consent  can  the  stake  be 
won  by  cither;  it  is  with  him  to  choose.  And  as  he 
chooses  and  abides  by  his  choice,  so  will  it  fare  with 
him  when  his  day  of  combat  is  done,  and  he  either 
crosses  the  Bridge  of  the  Gatherer,*  and  passes  into 
the  abode  of  God  that  dwells  in  Endless  Light,  or 

*  The  Bridge  Chinvat,  which  is  thrown  across  space  from  one  of 
the  highest  peaks  of  the  Hara-Berezaiti  to  the  Garo-nmana,  for  the 
soul  to  pass  after  death.  This  is  the  last  ordeal,  which  none  but  the 
godly  successfully  pass  through. 


96  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

misses  his  footing,  and    is    dragged  down  into  the 
"abode  of  Lie,"  which  is  Endless  Darkness. 

2.  Towards  this  loftiest  and  purest,  while  also 
simplest,  of  all  the  doctrines  that  the  ancient  world 
has  taught,  tended  the  evolution  of  the  primeval 
Aryan  Dualism  of  Nature,  as  it  was  effected  in  the 
Eranian  spiritual  consciousness,  moulded  and  direct- 
ed by  the  peculiar  conditions  of  Eranian  life.  That 
this  evolution  did  not  waste  itself  in  vague  and 
profitless  repinings  and  speculations,  like  the  streams 
of  Eran  in  the  barren  sands,  but  culminated  in  a 
positive  faith,  fruitful  in  works,  like  cloud-fed  springs 
that  are  gathered  to  a  head  and  flow  forth,  a  mighty 
and  life-giving  river,  into  the  haunts  of  men — this  is 
due  to  the  genius  and  preaching  of  Zarathushtra. 
He  laid  before  his  people  their  own  thoughts  in  all 
the  pure  transparency  of  crystal  waters  cleared  from 
muddiness  and  unwholesome  admixtures  in  the 
filter  of  his  own  transcendant  and  searching  mind. 
He  guided  their  groping  hands,  and  made  them 
grasp  the  truth  for  which  they  were  blindly  reach- 
ing. Such  is  the  mission  of  every  true  prophet.  Had 
the  people  not  been  ripe  for  his  teaching,  he  could 
not  have  secured  a  hearing,  or  made  himself  under- 
stood ;  the  people,  on  the  other  hand,  could  never 
have  worked  out  unaided  the  ideal  to  which  they 
were  vaguely  and  only  half-consciously  drawn. 
They  listened  and  understood,  and  were  won,  be- 
cause, to  use  the  expression  of  a  great  writer,*  they 

*  Voltaire.  He  says  of  the  hero  of  one  of  his  stories,  that  he  re- 
flected profoundly  on  a  certain  idea,  "  of  which  he  seemed  to  have 
the  seed  in  himself." 


THE   GATHAS.  9/ 

had  in  themselves  the  seed  of  the  thoughts  which  the 
prophet  expounded  to  them. 

3.  Even  if  we  lack  data  to  determine  the  time  of 
Zarathushtra's  life  and  work,  there  is  sufficient  in- 
trinsic evidence  in  the  Gathas,  which  were  most 
probably  taken  down  partly  from  the  prophet's  own 
words  and  partly  from  those  of  some  of  his  immedi. 
ate  disciples,  to  show  that  he  lived  at  a  period 
which  must  be  considered  an  early  one  in  the  history 
of  his  race.  In  their  slow  advance  to  the  West,  the 
Eranians  were  continually  harassed  by  fleetly 
mounted  Scythian  hordes  (Turan),  and  encountered 
scattered  tribes  of  the  same  hostile  race  all  along  the 
broad  and  irregular  track  of  their  migration.  These 
savage  nomads,  ubiquitous  with  their  small,  untiring 
steppe-horses  and  their  unerring  lassoes,  were  the 
standing  terror  of  the  Eranian  settlers,  whose  pas- 
tures and  farms  were  not  for  one  moment  secure 
from  their  raids.  In  the  national  Heroic  Epos, 
which  is  the  Battle-Myth  of  the  Skies  transferred  to 
earth,  the  Eranian  hero-kings  answer  to  the  Aryan 
gods,  whose  names  they  ofttimes  bear,  and  their 
Turanian  adversaries — lawless  invaders,  iniquitous 
usurpers  and  tyrants, — to  the  Aryan  demons.*  And 
in  the  time  of  the  allegorical  transformation  of 
myths,  which  already  approaches  the  historical 
period,  we  see  Violence,  Lawlessness,  and  Rapine, 

*  Compare  Yima,  son  of  Vivanghat  =  Yama,  son  of  Vivasvat. 
Also,  Thraetaona,  son  of  Athwya  r=  Trita,  son  of  Aptya  ;  in  the 
Epos  Thraetaona  becomes  the  famous  Persian  hero-king  Feridun, 
who  vanquishes  the  wicked  usurper  Zohak  =  Aji-Dahaka,  and  chains 
him  under  Mt.  Demavend  in  the  Elburz. 


98  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND    PERSIA. 

the  characteristic  features  of  the  Turanian  nomads 
and  raiders,  embodied  in  the  person  of  Aeshma- 
Daeva,  the  first  and  worst  of  daevas  after  the  Arch- 
Fiend  himself,  as  Sraosha,  the  personified  Obedience 
to  Mazda's  holy  Law,  is  the  first  of  the  Yazatas. 
The  prayer,  "  Deliver  us  from  Aeshma,"  therefore 
has  a  twofold  purport  :  "  Deliver  us  from  the  raids 
of  the  Turanians,  the  foes  of  the  honest  herdsman 
aud  tiller  of  the  land,"  and  also,  "  Deliver  us  from 
the  temptation  of  ourselves  committing  violence  and 
robbery." 

4.  That  the  Turanians  were  accounted  Daeva- 
yasnians,  worshippers  of  Fiends,  is  self-evident.  But 
not  they  alone.  Scarcely  less  hated  of  Zarathushtra 
and  his  followers  are  such  communities  of  their  own 
Aryan  race  as  resisted  the  progressive  movement 
towards  spiritual  and  enlightened  monotheism,  and 
persisted  in  sacrificing  to  the  gods  of  the  old  Aryan 
nature-worship.  There  were  doubtless  many  such, 
and  it  is  certainly  to  them,  their  leader,  and  their 
priests,  that  Zarathushtra  alludes  when  he  speaks  of 
the  evil  teachers  that  corrupt  the  people's  mind,  of 
the  persecutions  which  made  him  and  his  followers 
homeless  wanderers  (see  p.  24).  Nor  can  the  prophet 
be  said  to  advise  his  own  disciple^  to  deal  with  these 
unbelievers  exactly  in  a  spirit  of  charity.  Not  only 
are  they  bitterly,  wrathfully  denounced  throughout 
the  Gathas,  but  their  extermination  is  demanded  in 
no  equivocal  terms  :  he  who  hurls  from  power  or 
from  life  "  the  evil  ruler  who  opposes  "  the  progress 
of  Righteousness  in  his  province,  will  treasure  up 
"a  store  of  sacred  wisdom."  ;  any  one  who  brings 


THE   GATHAS. 


99 


harm  on  the  settlements  of  the  prophet's  followers, 
let  his  evil  deeds  recoil  on  himself,  let  his  prosperity 
be  blighted,  let  him  perish  and  "  no  help  come  to  him 
to  keep  him  back  from  misery.  And  let  this  hap- 
pen as  I  speak.  Lord  ! "  On  the  other  hand  none, 
not  even  Turanian  tribes,  if  they  will  be  converted, 
are  excluded  from  the  community  of  the  pious.  An 
important  and  authentic  precept  for  this  triumph  of 
religious  brotherhood  over  race-feeling  is  established 
by  the  following  explicit  statement : 

"  When  from  among  the  tribes  and  kith  of  the  Turanians  those 
shall  arise  who  further  on  the  settlements  of  Piety  with  energy  and 
zeal,  with  these  shall  Ahura  dwell  together  through  his  Good- 
Mind  (vohu-inano)  [which  will  abide  in  them],  and  to  them  for 
joyful  grace  deliver  his  commands."  (Yasna  XLVI.  12.  L.  H. 
Mills'  translation.) 

5.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  feelings  of 
hatred  and  contempt  with  which  Zarathushtra  in- 
spired his  followers  against  those  of  the  old  Aryan 
religion  were  amply  reciprocated  by  the  latter,  not 
only  by  such  as  still  lived  or  roamed  side  by  side 
with  them  in  the  cultivated  regions  or  the  wilds  of 
Eran,  but  also  by  those  who  had  already  descended 
into  India.  This  supplies  us  with  the  most  natural 
explanation  of  some  facts  which  would  otherwise  be 
difificult  to  account  for :  the  use  by  the  Zarathushtrian 
Eranians  of  the  word  daeva  with  the  meaning  of 
"  demon,  fiend,"  while  Sanskrit  deva  continued  in  the 
sister  nation  of  India  to  denote  the  gods  of  Light, 
the  bright  and  beneficent  Powers,  as  it  had  done  in 
the  joint  Indo-Eranian  period,  and  probably  in  the 
primeval  Aryan  times, — together   with    the   corres- 


lOO  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

ponding  use  by  the  Aryan  Hindus  in  the  same  evil 
sense  of  the  Sanskrit  As7ira  (=Eranian  AJiurd).  This 
latter  fact  derives  its  significancy  from  the  circum- 
stance that  the  older  Aryan  Hindus  gave  to  the 
word  the  same  meaning  as  the  Eranians,  that  of 
"Lord,"  "divine,"  and  used  it  as  the  loftiest  title 
of  several  of  the  deities,  especially  of  their  Sky-gods, 
the  primeval  Dyaus  and  his  successor  Vdruna, 
to  whom  a  certain  notion  of  supremacy  or  overlord- 
ship  seems  to  have  attached  from  the  earliest  times. 
Astira  is  used  in  this  wholly  reverential  sense  in  the 
greatest  part  of  the  Rig-Veda,  but  the  change  has 
taken  place  already  in  the  later  hymns  of  the  collec- 
tion, where  the  Asuras  appear  as  the  fiends  and 
devils — Powers  of  Evil — they  remain  throughout  the 
later  literature  of  India,  religious  and  profane.  Now, 
these  hymns  were  gathered  in  their  present  form  and 
order,  according  to  the  latest  and  most  moderate 
calculations,  between  1500  and  1 000  B.C.  This  givea 
us  an  indirect  but  not  unimportant  hint  as  to  the 
probable  time  of  Zarathushtra  and  his  reform. 

6.  Nothing  can  be  more  impressive  or  majestic 
than  the  purely  fanciful  scene  in  which  the  prophet 
and  his  mission  are  introduced  to  the  world.  It  is  a 
sort  of  Prologue  in  Heaven,  enacted  by  the  denizens 
of  the  spirit-world.  Geush-Urvan  (literally  "  Soul 
of  the  Steer"),  the  guardian  spirit  or  "Chief"  {ratti) 
of  animal  creation,  and  especially  domestic  cattle, 
raises  up  his  voice  to  heaven  and  complains  of  the 
ill-treatment  and  sufferings  which  he  and  his  kind 
endure  at  the  hands  of  men,  while  it  had  been  fore- 
told him  that  they  would  be  benefited  by  the  insti- 


THE    GATHAS.  lOI 

tution  of  agriculture.  Asha  (Righteousness  and 
Order,  personified  as  one  of  the  Amesha-Spentas) 
replies  that,  though  no  really  benevolent  man  will 
be  hard  on  his  cattle,  yet  people  in  general  don't 
always  know  in  what  manner  they  should  behave  to 
their  inferiors,  and  adds:  "Mazda  knows  best  the 
deeds  of  daevas  and  men,  both  those  that  have  been 
and  those  that  are  to  be.  He,  the  Lord  (Ahura), 
has  to  decide ;  as  he  wills,  so  shall  it  be."  Mazda 
then  speaks,  and  his  decision  brings  scant  comfort 
to  the  Guardian  of  the  Flocks,  for  he  informs  him 
that  there  is  no  special  p''otector  for  cattle,  since 
they  have  been  created  for  the  use  of  the  tiller  and 
herdsman,  whom,  by  his  own — Mazda's — and  Asha's 
ordinance,  they  are  to  supply  with  meat  and  drink, 
by  giving  him  their  milk  and  their  flesh.  Geush- 
Urvan,  in  despair,  then  asks :  "  Hast  thou  no  one 
among  men  who  would  take  kindly  care  of  us?" 
Whereupon  Mazda  answers — and  here  lies  the  gist 
of  the  poetical  apologue : — "  I  know  on  earth  only 
one  man  who  has  heard  our  decrees — Zarathushtra 
Spitama.  He  will  announce  from  memory  my  and 
Asha's  teachings,  when  I  endow  him  with  sweetness 
of  speech."  Then  the  Spirit  of  the  Flocks  moaned 
aloud  :  "  Woe  is  me  !  and  is  the  powerless  word  of 
an  unwarlike  man  all  I  am  to  look  to,  when  I  wished 
for  the  protection  of  a  mighty  hero?  When  will  he 
ever  come,  he  who  is  to  lend  my  cattle  efficient 
help?  .  .  .  But  I  know  that  thou,  O  Mazda, 
knowest  best.  Where  else  should  be  justice,  benev- 
olence, and  power !  .  ,  .  And  thus  the  Spirit 
of  the  Flocks  departs,  more  disappointed  than  con- 


I02  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

soled,  nor  knows  that  the  Word  is  far  mightier  than 
the  sword.* 

7.  After  this  preamble,  we  are  prepared  to  see 
the  prophet  enter  on  his  mission.  There  is  no 
thread  of  narrative  to  inform  us  of  the  course  of 
events,  but  the  text  speaks  for  itself,  and  as  we  read 
the  famous  Chapter  XXX.  of  Yasna,  we  have  no 
difificulty  in  imagining  the  preacher  addressing  an 
assembled  multitude  of  men — people  and  nobles — in 
the  presence,  as  can  be  inferred  from  one  passage,  of 
the  king,  who  had  believed  in  him,  probably  Kava 
ViSHTASPA.  As  this  discourse  is  to  Mazdeism,  in  its 
first  and  pure  stage,  what  the  Sermon  of  the  Mount 
is  to  our  own  religion,  we  shall  give  it  almost 
uncurtailed.f 

"  I.  Now  shall  I  proclaim  unto  you,  O  ye  all  that  here  approach 
me,  what  the  wise  should  lay  to  their  hearts  ;  the  songs  of  praise  and 
the  sacrificial  rites  which  pious  men  pay  the  Lord  (Ahura),  and  the 
sacred  truths  and  ordinances  (Asha),  that  what  was  secret  until  now 
may  appear  in  the  light. 

' '  2.  Hear  with  your  ears  that  which  is  best,  and  test  it  with  a  clear 
understanding,  before  each  man  decides  for  himself  between  the  two 
teachings. 

"3.  The  two  Spirits,  the  Twins,  skilfully  created,  in  the  begin- 
ning. Good  and  Evil,  in  thought,  in  speech,  in  deed.  And,  between 
these  two,  the  wise  have  made  the  right  choice  ;  not  so  the  senseless. 

' '  4.  And  when  these  two  spirits  had  agreed  to  institute  the  spring- 
ing up  and  the  passing  away  of  all  things  [to  create  Life  and  Death], 
and  to  decree  that  in  the  end  the  lot  of  the  followers  of  Lie  {drujvan, 
i.  e. ,  holders  of  the  false  gods  and  religion)  should  be  the  worst  life, 
and  that  of  the  followers  of  Truth  {ashavan,  of  the  true  religion) 
should  be  the  happiest  mental  state, — 

*  Freely  given  from  the  translation  of  Bartholomae,  in  "  Arische 
Forschungen,"  IIL 

f  From  Bartholomae's  translation  in  "Arische  Forschungen,"  IL 


THE    GATHAS.  IO3 

"5.  Then  of  these  two  Spirits  the  lying  one  elected  to  do  evil, 
while  the  holiest  Spirit  {Spenia-Mainyu),  he  who  is  clothed  with  the 
solid  heavens  as  with  a  robe,  elected  the  Right  {asha),  and  with  him 
all  those  who  wish  to  do  right  in  the  eyes  of  Ahura-Mazda. 

"  6.  And  to  his  side  came  with  Khshathra,  Vohu-mano  and  Asha, 
and  Aramaiti  the  eternal,  who  made  the  earth  her  body.  In  these 
mayest  thou  have  a  share,  that  thou  mayest  outdo  all  others  in 
wealth.* 

"  7.  The  daevas  also  made  not  the  right  choice  (between  good  and 
evil),  for,  as  they  were  debating,  folly  overcame  them,  so  that  they 
chose  the  Worst  Mind  {ako-mano,  opposed  to  vohu-!nano  ).  And  they 
assembled  in  the  house  of  violence  (aesJuna)  to  destroy  the  life  of 
man  ;  "  (/,  e.,  they  joined  with  the  enemies  of  the  Zarathustrians,  the 
plunderers  and  destroyers  of  their  settlements,  farms,  and  cattle.) 

"8.  But  when  the  vengeance  comes  for  their  deeds  of  violence, 
then,  O  Ahura-Mazda,  surely  the  sovereignty  will  be  given' by  thy 
Good  Mind  to  those  who  will  have  helped  Truth  {asha)  to  overcome 
Lie  {druj). 

"  9.  Therefore  will  we  belong  to  those  who  are  in  time  to  lead  this 
life  on  to  perfection.  Grant  us  then,  O  Mazda,  and  ye  gods,  your 
assistance,  and  thou  also,  O  Asha,  that  every  man  may  be  enlight- 
ened whose  understanding,  as  yet,  judges  falsely. 

"  10.  For  then  the  blow  of  destruction  shall  fall  on  the  liar,  while 
those  who  keep  the  good  teaching  will  assemble  unhindered  in  the 
beauteous  abode  of  Vohu-mano,  Mazda,  and  Asha. 

"11.  If,  O  men,  you  lay  to  your  hearts  these  ordinances  which 
Mazda  instituted,  and  the  good  and  the  evil,  and  the  long  torments 
which  await  the  followers  of  falsehood,  {drujvan),  and  the  bliss  that 
must  come  to  the  holders  of  the  true  faith,  (as/iavati),  it  will  go  well 
with  you." 

8.  We  have  here  the  essence  of  Mazdeism  in  its 
sublime  simplicity,  its  absolute  purity,  as  it  shaped 
itself  in  the  mind  of  the  founder.    All  further  devel- 

*  This  last  sentence  would  seem  to  be  addressed  to  the  king.  The 
benediction,  in  plain  words,  amounts  to  this  :  "  Mayest  thou  be 
endowed  with  the  sovereign  power,  the  peace  of  mind,  and  the  piety 
that  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  true  religion,  and  thus  deserve  a  share 
in  the  dominion  of  the  earth,  and  outdo  all  other  kings  in  wealth." 


104  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

opments  as  given  in  the  rest  of  the  Gathas  may- 
well  be  said  to  be  but  commentary.  The  Dualism 
here  announced  is  absolute :  the  two  Spirits  are 
twins,  not  hostile  in  the  beginning,  nor  separated, 
and  together  create  the  world,  material  and  spiritual, 
visible  and  invisible  ;  the  result  is  of  necessity  a  mix- 
ture of  opposites,  for  we  can  know  a  thing  only  by 
its  contrary  :  how  should  we  know  light,  warmth, 
health,  but  from  their  contrast  with  darkness,  cold, 
sickness?  Life,  then,  must  be  balanced  by  Death; 
Truth  by  Falsehood  ;  in  other  words,  Good  by  Evil. 
So  far  there  is  no  right  or  wrong,  only  necessity. 
But  now  comes  the  choice.  Now  the  twin  spirits, 
having  each  taken  his  part,  become  the  "  Spirit  which 
is  all  Life "  and  the  "  Spirit  which  is  all  Death  " 
(life  and  death  being  considered  the  supreme  expres- 
sions of  Good  and  Evil),  to  be  foes  for  evermore ; 
and  now  begins  the  warfare  in  which  nothing  is  in- 
different or  purposeless,  but  every  move  tells  for  one 
or  the  other,  and  in  which  all  mankind,  without  ex- 
ception, "each  man  for  himself,"  must  freely  choose 
his  side,  fight  on  it,  and  abide  the  consequences.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  even  the  daevas,  the  uncompro- 
misingly abhorred  fiends  and  demons  of  later  Maz- 
deism,  are  not  presented  by  the  prophet  as  evil  origi- 
nally and  in  themselves,  but  only  from  the  evil  choice 
they  7nake  when,  as  free  agents,  the  choice  is  before 
them  as  before  the  two  Supreme  Twins.  So  absolute 
is  his  belief  in  the  free-will  and  responsibility  of 
every  being,  whether  of  the  spirit  world  or  the  ma- 
terial world. 

9.   Little  could  be  added  to  the  great  Declaration 


THE   GATHAS.  IO5 

of  Faith  known  as  "  Chapter  XXX.  of  Yasna,"  in 
point  of  doctrine,  by  ransacking  the  rest  of  the 
Gathic  poems.  A  profound  conviction  of  his  heaven- 
sent mission — ("  I  am  thy  chosen  one  from  the  be- 
ginning ;  all  others  I  consider  as  my  opponents  ") — 
outpourings  of  personal  feelings  in  the  days  of  per- 
secution and  distress,  appeals  for  help  and  enlighten- 
ment often  worded  with  great  pathos  and  tenderness 
— ("  To  thee  I  cry  :  Behold,  O  Lord,  and  grant  me 
assistance,  as  a  friend  grants  it  to  a  dear  friend  !  ") — 
such  is  the  strain  that  runs  through  all  these  ancient 
hymns,  lending  them  a  thoroughly  human,  living 
interest.  One  of  them  (chapter  XLIV.)  especially 
breathes  the  purest  poetical  feeling,  and  keeps  on  a 
lofty  level  rarely  maintained  for  so  long  a  stretch  in 
these  often  crude  literary  efforts.  The  questionings, 
the  doubts,  the  longings  of  the  prophet's  spirit  are 
put  in  the  form  of  a  series  of  questions  addressed  by 
him  to  his  4ieavenly  "  friend  "  and  teacher.  Some 
bear  upon  points  of  doctrine,  some  on  the  issue  of  a 
coming  struggle  : 

"  This  I  will  ask  ;  tell  it  me  right,  O  Lord  (Ahura) — will  the  good 
deeds  of  men  be  rewarded  already  before  the  best  life  comes  ?  .  .  ." 
(The  "best  life  " — future  life,  for  the  good.) 

"This  I  will  ask  thee  ;  tell  it  me  right,  O  Lord — are  those  things 
which  T  will  proclaim  really  so?  Will  the  righteous  acquire  holiness 
by  their  good  deeds  ?  Wilt  thou  award  them  the  kingdom  (of 
heaven — Khshathra)  through  the  good  mind  ?  (voku-manS) 
How  will  my  soul  attain  to  bliss  ?  .  .  .  Will  piety  {drmaiti) 
come  to   those,   O  Mazda,  to  whom  thy  faith  is  declared  ?      .      .      . 

■'  This  I  will  ask  thee  ;  tell  it  me  right,  O  Lord — who  of  those  to 
whom  I  am  speaking  here  is  a  friend  of  Truth  (ashd),  who  of  False- 
hood [drtij)  ?  On  which  side  stand  the  wicked  ?  And  are  thty  not 
wicked,  the  unbelievers,  who  make  thy  benefits  vain  ?  (by  attacking 
and  robbing  the  followers  of  Ahura-Mazda) 


I06  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

"  How  shall  I  turn  from  us  the  Spirit  of  Lie  ?  (druj) 
How  shall  I  procure  the  triumph  of  Righteousness  (as/ia)  over  the 
Spirit  of  Lie  (druj)  so  that  it  may,  according  to  the  promise  of  thy 
teaching,  inflict  on  the  unbelieving  a  fell  defeat,  and  deal  unto  them 
death  and  destruction  ? 

"  This  I  will  ask  of  thee  ;  tell  it  me  right,  O  Lord — canst  thou 
indeed  protect  me  when  the  two  hosts  meet  ?  .  .  .  To  which  of 
the  two  wilt  thou  give  the  victory?     ..." 

Some  of  the  questions  are  a  poetical  form  of  hom- 
age to  the  Creator  of  all  things,  whose  glory  they  in- 
directly proclaim  : 

"  This  I  will  ask  thee  ;  tell  it  me  right,  O  Lord  : — Who  sustains 
the  earth  here  below,  and  the  space  above,  that  they  do  not  fall  ? 
Who  made  the  waters  and  the  plants  ?  Who  to  the  winds  has  yoked 
the  storm-clouds,  the  two  tleetest  of  things  ?  .  .  .  Who  skilfully 
created  light  and  darkness  ?  Who  sleep  and  wakefulness  ?  Who 
the  noontide  and  the  night,  and  the  dawns  that  call  the  wise  to  their 
work  ? 

",  .  .  Who  created  the  blessed  Armaiti  and  Khshathra  ?  *  Who 
made  the  son  to  be  the  image  of  the  father? — I  will  proclaim,  O 
Mazda,  that  thou,  O  Beneficent  Spirit !  (Spenta-Mainyu),  art  the 
Maker  of  all  things." 

lo.  These  specimens  of  the  Gathic  hymns  are  suf- 
ficient to  show,  besides  the  doctrine,  the  character- 
istic drift  and  the  tone  of  Zarathushtra's  own 
teaching :  a  great  directness  of  speech,  a  studied 
avoidance  of  even  the  familiar  language  of  poetical 
imagery,  as  tending  to  perpetuate  that  spirit  of 
mythical  redundancy  which  it  was  the  object  of 
his  reform  to  eradicate.  Nor  are  passages  wanting 
where  he  denounces  in  direct  terms  the  false  and 
evil  teachers,  doubtless  the  priests  of  the  nature- 
deities  of  India  and  the  unbelieving  Eranian  tribes. 

*  "  Earth  and  Heaven  "  in  this  place.  See  Bartholomae,"Arische 
Forschungen,"  II.,  p.  163. 


THE   GATHAS.  I07 

Most  noticeable  is  the  fact  that  the  prophet  scarcely 
ever  lapses  even  into  the  religious  allegory  which 
supplanted  the  Aryan  mythology  in  the  later  devel- 
opment of  Mazdeism,  peopling  the  unseen  world 
with  a  theological  hierarchy  of  Archangels,  Angels, 
and  Saints  (Amesha-Spentas,  Yazatas,  and  Frava- 
shis)  in  the  place  of  the  ancient  nature-deities. 
The  Fravashis  do  not  occur  at  all  in  the  Gathas, 
nor  the  Amesha-Spentas  as  a  body  of  spiritual 
persons.  We  see  "  good  mind,"  "  righteousness," 
"  piety  "  ("  vohu-iua?io,''  "  as/ia,"'  "  drinaiti  "),  used  as 
common  abstract  names,  in  their  direct  and  proper 
meaning,  not  as  names  of  allegorical  persons,  even 
in  a  remarkable  passage  where  all  six  are  mentioned 
as  the  gifts  of  Ahura-Mazda.  Thus  "  obedience  to 
the  Law  of  Mazda  "  {sraosha),  the  cardinal  virtue  of 
the  Mazdayasnian,  is  spoken  of  only  as  such,  and  not 
yet  allegorized  into  the  Chief  of  the  Yazatas,  the 
champion  "  fiend-smiter,"  a  sort  of  Eranian  Saint 
Michael.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  "  Aeshma,"  the 
later  leader  of  all  the  demon-host, — Aeshma-Daeva, 
the  special  opponent  of  Sraosha,  the  leader  of  the 
Yazatas, — mentioned  in  any  sense  but  the  direct  one 
of  "  violence  "  or  "  spirit  of  violence."  There  is  no 
faintest  trace  of  superstition  or  idolatrous  worship 
in  the  reverence  paid  to  "  Ahura-Mazda's  Fire,"  the 
symbol  and  rallying  sacrament  of  a  pure  faith  ;  sac- 
rifices and  "  meat-offerings  "  are  spoken  of,  but  there 
is  no  insisting  on  a  tiresomely  minute  ceremonial ; 
no  mention  of  either  Mithra  or  Haoma  ;  the  heath- 
enish rites  connected  with  the  use  of  the  intox- 
icating drink  of  the  same  name  are  not  encouraged  ; 


I08  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

indeed,  there  is  one  passage  (Yasna,  XLVIIL,  lo) 
which  is  interpreted  as  expressing  abhorrence  of 
those  rites,  and  classing  them  with  the  sacrifices  to 
the  daevas,  "  the  seed  of  Evil,"  as  an  act  of  impiety. 

"  When,  O  Mazda  !  shall  the  men  of  perfect  mintl  come?  And 
when  shall  they  drive  from  hence  this  polluted  drunken  joy  whereby 
the  Karpans  (hostile  priests)  with  angry  zeal  would  crush  us,  and 
by  whose  inspiration  the  tyrants  of  the  provinces  hold  their  evil 
rule  !  " 

And  though  the  prophet  repeatedly  speaks  of  the 
"  open  Chinvat  Bridge  "  (Bridge  of  the  Gatherer), 
which  the  soul  of  the  righteous  cross  with  ease  on 
their  passage  into  Ahura's  own  abode  of  bliss,  the 
Garo-nmana,  while  the  wicked  fall  from  it  "  into  the 
abode  of  Lie  forever,"  he  abstains  from  imaginative 
descriptions  that  might  too  easily  slide  back  into 
mythology  and  polytheism.  In  short,  to  use  the 
words  of  an  eminent  scholar,  the  latest  translator  of 
the  Gathas*  :  "  In  the  Gathas  all  is  sober  and  real ; 
.  .  .  .  the  Karpans,  etc.,  are  no  mythical  mon- 
sters ;  no  dragon  threatens  the  settlements,  and  no 
fabulous  beings  defend  them.  Zarathushtra,  Djam- 
aspa,  Frashaostra  f  .  .  .  are  as  real,  and  are 
alluded  to  with  a  simplicity  as  unconscious  as  any 
characters  in  history.  Except  inspiration,  there  are 
no  miracles.  All  the  action  is  made  up  of  the  exer- 
tions and  passions  of  living  and  suffering  men.  .  ,  .'" 

II.  "With  the  'Yasna  of  Seven  Chapters,'"  re- 

*  L.  H.  Mills,  in  vol.  XXXI.  of  "The  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East." 

f  Two  great  nobles  and  chiefs  of  Vishtaspa's  following,  ardent  and 
powerful  supporters  of  Zarathushtra,  whose  daughter  one  of  them 
married. 


THE    GATHAS.  IO9 

marks  the  same  scholar,  "  which  ranks  next  in 
antiquity  to  the  Gathas,  we  already  pass  into  an 
atmosphere  distinct  from  them.  The  dialect  still 
lingers,  but  the  spirit  is  changed."  The  fact  is  that 
all  history  shows  how  impossible  it  is  for  any  religion 
or  doctrine  to  maintain  itself  on  the  level  of  absolute 
loftiness  and  purity  on  which  it  was  placed  by  the 
founder  or  reformer.  He  is  one  man  in  a  nation, 
above  and  ahead  of  his  time,  his  race,  nay,  mankind 
in  general  ;  so  are,  in  a  lesser,  degree,  his  immediate 
followers,  his  first  disciples.  But  the  mass  of  those 
who  learn  from  him  and  them — the  herd — is  com- 
posed of  average  minds,  which,  after  the  first  enthu- 
siasm has  cooled  and  the  novelty  has  worn  off,  feel 
but  ill  at  ease  on  an  altitude  that  makes  too  great 
demands  on  their  spiritual  powers.  Then  there  are 
the  old  habits,  which,  as  the  strain  is  irksomely  felt, 
reassert  themselves  with  all  the  sacredness  of  early 
nay,  ancestral,  association,  all  the  sweetness  of  fa- 
miliarity. Then  begins  the  work  of  adaptation  ;  the 
new  religion  is  half  unconsciously  fitted  to  the  old  ; 
there  is  a  gradual  revival  of  ancient  ideas,  ancient 
poetry,  ancient  forms  and  usages — and  scarce  a  life- 
time has  elapsed  after  the  reformer  has  passed  away, 
when  his  work  is  changed  beyond  recognition,  and 
the  doctrine  and  practice  of  those  who  still  call 
themselves  his  followers,  have  become  a  medley  of 
what  he  taught  and  the  very  things  against  which  he 
rose  in  protest.  Still,  o)i  the  whole,  there  is  real 
progress  :  the  new  spirit  remains,  the  standard  has 
been  raised,  and  a  new  step  taken  towards  the  ideal — 
a  step  which  can  never  be  retraced. 


no  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

12.  Of  this  process  of  adaptation  the  collection  of 
prayers  in  Gathic  dialect,  set  apart  in  the  body  of 
the  Yasna-liturgy  under  the  name  of  "  Yasna  of 
Seven  Chapters,"  offers  a  striking  illustration,  though 
it  is  of  course  impossible  to  surmise  how  long  an 
interval  separates  them  from  those  older  Gathas 
which  may  be  said  to  embody  the  Zoroastrian 
Revelation.  Set  forms  .of  invocation  and  a  regular 
working  ritual,  presupposing  a  strictly  organized  class 
of  priests,  have  gathered  round  the  substance  which 
alone  engrossed  the  prophet  ;  his  abstract  specula- 
tions have  become  greatly  materialized,  and  the 
allegorical  forms  of  speech  in  which  he  but  sparingly 
indulged  have  crystallized  into  personifications  solid 
enough  to  start  a  new  myth-development.  The  at- 
tributes of  the  Deity  and  the  qualities  it  vouchsafes 
to  its  pure-minded  followers — Good  Mind,  Righteous- 
ness, Piety,  etc. — have  become  the  fully  organized 
body  of  the  Amesha-Spcntas  ;  Fire  has  become  the 
object  of  a  special  worship  somewhat  idolatrous  in 
form  ;  and — surest  sign  of  future  decadence — the 
mythical  taint  begins  to  crop  up  in  the  worship  and 
sacrifice  expressly  paid  to  natural  objects:  "we  sacri- 
fice to  the  hills  that  run  with  torrents,  and  the  lakes 
that  brim  with  waters,  ...  to  both  earth  and 
heaven  and  to  the  stormy  wind  that  Mazda  made, 
and  to  the  peak  of  high  Haraiti,  and  to  the  land  and 
all  things  good."  We  have  here  the  whole  Aryan 
nature-pantheon  in  subdued  form  ;  indeed  so  strongly 
does  the  old  mythical  habit  of  speech  reassert  itself, 
that  the  Waters  are  called  "  the  Wives  of  Ahura  " 
and  "  female  Ahuras  "  (see  p.  62).     The  Fravashis, 


THE   GATHAS.  Ill 

not  once  mentioned  in  the  original  Gathas,  are 
here  invoked  and  "worshipped"  together  with 
Ahura-Mazda  himself  and  the  Bountiful  Immor- 
tals, although  their  number  is  restricted  to  those  "  of 
the  Saints,  of  holy  men  and  holy  women  "  (fol- 
lowers and  propagators  of  the  new  religion).  Lastly 
Haoma  reappears,  "  Haoma  golden-flowered  that 
grows  on  the  heights,  Haoma  that  restores  us  .  .  . 
that  driveth  death  afar."  We  shall  see,  however, 
that  the  rites  of  this,  one  of  the  most  primeval 
Aryan  deities,  were  not  restored  in  the  coarse  form 
which  Zarathushtra  seems  to  have  particularly  de- 
nounced (see  p.  io8). 

13.  The  Yasna  has  preserved  to  us  an  important 
document — the  profession  of  faith  which  was  re- 
quired from  each  Mazdayasnian  convert,  the  true 
Avestan  Creed.  Although  too  long  to  be  reproduced 
here  entire,  some  of  the  principal  verses  will  prove 
of  interest  : 

"  I.  I  curse  the  daevas.  I  confess  myself  a  worshipper  of  Mazda, 
a  follower  of  Zarathushtra,  a  foe  to  the  daevas,  a  believer  in  Ahura, 
a  praiser  of  the  Amesha-Spentas. 

"  2.  I  believe  in  the  good,  holy  Armaiti,  may  she  abide  with  me. 
I  forswear  henceforth  all  robbing  and  stealing  of  cattle  and  the 
plundering  and  destruction  of  villages  belonging  to  worshippers  of 
Mazda. 

"  3.  To  householders  I  promise  that  they  may  roam  at  will  and 
abide  unmolested  wherever  upon  the  earth  they  may  be  dwelling 
with  their  herds.  Humbly  with  uplifted  hands  to  Asha  I  swear  this. 
Nor  will  I  hereafter  bring  plunder  or  destruction  on  the  Mazda- 
yasnian villages,  not  even  to  avenge  life  and  limb. 

"  81  I  confess  myself  a  worshipper  of  Mazda,  a  follower  of  Zara- 
thushtra, professing  and  confessing  the  same.  I  profess  good 
thoughts,  good  words,  good  deeds. 


112  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

"9.  I  profess  the  Mazdayasniaii  religion  which,  while  girded  with 
armor,  resorts  not  to  weapons,  and  the  righteous  marriage  among 
kindred  ;  which  religion,  as  established  by  Ahura  and  Zarathushtra, 
is  the  highest,  best,  and  most  excellent  among  those  that  are  and 
that  are  to  be.  .  .  .  This  is  the  profession  of  the  Mazdayasnian 
religion."  * 

14.  The  last  verse  contains  an  allusion  to  a  singular 
custom,  sanctioned,  if  not  originated,  by  Mazdeism, 
and  which  has  drawn  much  censure  on  its  followers: 
the  custom  of  intermarriage  between  kindred,  even 
so  near  as  brothers  and  sisters.  It  is  not  only  per- 
mitted, but  absolutely  enjoined  and  invested  with  a 
peculiar  sanctity.  This  notion  possibly  had  its 
source  in  the  necessity  of  drawing  the  family  ties, 
the  clanship,  as  closely  as  possible,  in  self-defence, 
and  also  of  fostering  matrimonial  alliances  within 
the  circle — narrow  at  first — of  the  faithful.  Any- 
how, the  defenders  of  this  to  us  abominable  custom 
claim  that,  if  mankind  be  descended  from  one  couple, 
the  first  marriage  must  have  been  one  between 
brother  and  sister.  Besides,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  it  was  not  regarded  with  uniform  horror  by  re- 
mote antiquity,  and  was  in  general  use  as  late  as 
among  the  Egyptians,  that  most  intellectual  and 
certainly  not  immoral  people.  The  probabilities  are 
that  it  was  a  very  ancient  Eranian  custom,  confirmed 
by  the  new  religion  on  practical  grounds. 

*  Translation  of  Mr.  A.  V.  W.  Jackson,  of  Columbia  College, 
New  York. 


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VI. 


MIGRATIONS  AND  FOREIGN  INFLUENCES — THE  VEN- 
DIDAD  —  HEATHEN  REVIVAL  —  THE  KHORDEH- 
AVESTA. 

I.  If  with  the  "  Yasna  of  Seven  Chapters"  we 
already  pass  into  an  atmosphere  distinct  from  that 
of  the  Gathas  (see  p.  io8),  the  Vendidad  takes  us 
into  another  world.  The  most  cursory  perusal  of 
the  book  shows  us  that  the  religion  carried  westward 
by  its  Eranian  bearers  has  wandered  far  from  its 
cradle,  and  has  assimilated  many  foreign  elements  in 
its  wanderings.  The  Vendidad,  the  only  book  of 
Avestan  law  preserved  entire  out  of  the  mass  of 
Avestan  literature,  is  devoted  to  only  one  subject, 
but  that  a  most  important  one :  the  means  of  main- 
taining the  ideal  Mazdayasnian  purity  and  of  fight- 
ing and  defeating  the  daevas.  It  is  the  extreme 
minuteness  and  puerility  of  most  of  the  observances 
prescribed,  together  with  the  importance  given  to 
mere  points  of  material  detail,  which  produce  so 
startling  a  contrast  between  this  later  development 
of  Mazdeism  and  the  pure  abstraction  of  Zarathush- 
tra's  own  teaching.  Still  the  spirit  of  that  teaching 
is  there  in  its  essential  features  ;  and  the  regulations 
contain  much  that  is  excellent   and  wise  under  all 


114  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

the  rubbish  of  priestly  discipHne.  Moreover,  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  Mazdcism  in  this  particular 
form  was  not  by  any  means  adopted  by  all  the  fol- 
lowers of  Zarathushtra,  and,  indeed,  seems  to  have 
been  at  first  confined  to  the  northern  Eranians, 
especially  the  Medes,  and  to  have  become  generally 
enforced  only  at  the  revival  of  the  national  religion 
under  the  Sassanian  kings. 

2.  Three  fundamental  principles  underlie  this 
priestly  legislation,  and  make  it  at  once  intelligible, 
even  in  its  extravagances  :  (i)  There  is  only  one 
thoroughly  noble  and  honorable  calling,  and  that  is 
agriculture  and  cattle-raising,  for  as  much  land  as  is 
reclaimed  and  made  productive  or  used  for  pasture, 
just  so  much  is  wrested  from  Angra-Mainyu  and 
his  daevas.  (2)  The  entire  creation  is  divided  into 
"the  good  "  and  "the  bad."  Ahura-Mazda  made  all 
useful  creatures  ;  foremost  and  holiest  among  these 
are  cattle,  the  guardian  dog  and  the  vigilant  cock. 
It  is  a  duty  to  tend  them  and  a  sin  to  neglect  them. 
Angra-Mainyu  made  all  the  noxious  creatures.  It  is 
a  duty  to  destroy  them  on  all  occasions.  They  are 
classed  under  the  generic  name  of  KhrafSTRAS,  and 
we  arc  surprised  to  see  the  most  harmless  insects, 
and  animals  like  the  frog,  the  lizard,  included  in  the 
doom  of  destruction  together  with  wolves,  serpents, 
flies,  and  ants.  Heretics  and  wicked  men  also 
sometimes  come  under  this  denomination.  (3)  The 
elements — air,  water,  earth,  and  fire — are  pure  and 
holy,  and  must  not  be  defiled  by  the  contact  of  any 
thing  impure.  The  priest,  therefore,  while  ofificiating 
before  the  fire,  wears  a  cloth  before  his  mouth,  that 


6.  "  PAITIDANA  "  (PENOM) 
— CLOTH  WORN  BY  THE  PAR- 
SIS  BEFORE  THEIR  MOUTHS 
IN  PRESENCE  OF  THE  SACRED 
FIRE. 


5.     PARSI     IN   PRAYING   COS- 
TUME. 


7.     "  KOSTI  " SACRED     GIRDLE    WORN     BY     PARSIS    WHILE   PRAYING 

OR  DURING  ANY  SACRED  CEREMONY. 


ii6 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 


his  breath  may  not  sully  the  supremely  holy  ele- 
ment. Such  a  cloth  is  worn  to  this  day  by  every 
Parsi  while  tending  the  sacred  fire  of  his  own  home- 
altar,  or  even  saying  his  prayers. 

3.  Every  thing  in  the  Vendidad,  as  well  as  in  the 
later  purely  liturgical  portions  of  the  Yasna,  and  the 
litany  known  as  the  "  Vispered  "  (see  p.  30),  betrays 
the  authority  of  a  long-established  and  all-powerful 
priesthood.     This  would    be   obvious  enough,  even 


8.      "  ATESH-GAH  "  oR    "  FI RE-AL  i  .vk  "  <ji'    MODERN    PARSIS. 

without  the  evidence  of  a  passage  {Fargard — i.  e., 
"  chapter" — IX.)  where  Zarathushtra  is  made  to  com- 
plain to  Ahura-Mazda  of  the  harm  that  is  done  by  any 
person — layman  or  heretic — who,  "  not  knowing  the 
rites  of  purification  according  to  the  law  of  Mazda," 
presumes  to  perform  the  ceremony  for  any  of  the 
faithful  who  have  incurred  uncleanness.  Ahura- 
Mazda   expressly   states  that   "  sickness   and  death, 


THE  VENDIDAD. —  THE  LESSER  A  VESTA.     WJ 


and  the  working  of  the  fiend,  are  stronger  than  they 
were  before  "  in  consequence  of  such  sacrilegious  in- 
terference, and,  on  being  asked  "  What  is  the  penalty 
that  he  shall  pay?  "  gives  the  following  directions  : 

"  The  worshippers  of  Mazda  shall  bind  him  ;  they  shall  bind  his 
hands  first  ;  then  they  shall  strip  him  of  his  clothes,  they  shall  flay 
him  alive,  they  shall  cut  off  his  head,  and   they  shall   give  over  his 


9.    "ATESH-GAH  "  or  "  FIRE-ALTAR  "  ;      SEEN    BY   ANQUETIL    DUPER- 
RON    AT    SIJRAT. 

corpse  unto  the  greediest  of  the  corpse-eating  creatures  made  by 
Ahura-Mazda,  unto  the  ravens,*  with  these  words  :  '  The  man  here 
has  repented  of  all  his  evil  thoughts,  words,  and  deeds.  If  he  has 
committed  any  other  evil  deed,  it  is  remitted  by  his  repentance 
for  ever  and  for  ever. '"  f 

*  Although  there  is  no  worse  pollution  than  touching  a  corpse, 
these  birds  are  "made  by  Ahura-Mazda,"  i.  e.,  pure,  because  they 
are  necessary  to  remove  the  pollution  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

f  The  punishment  atones  for  all  offences,  and  the  soul  goes 
fo  Paradise   free   from   taint    or  guilt. 


Il8  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

4.  The  Athravan — Firc-pricst — is  indeed  a  majestic 
figure,  as  he  stands  forth,  in  flowing  white  robe,  the 
lower  part  of  his  face  veiled,  beside  the  dtcsJi-gdJi,  or 
"fire-altar,"  a  metal  vessel  placed  on  a  low  stone 
platform  and  filled  with  ashes,  on  top  of  which 
burns  the  fire  of  dry,  fragrant  chips,  continually 
trimmed  and  replenished.  In  one  hand  he  holds  the 
Khrafstraghna  (the  "  khrafstra-killer,"  an  instru- 
ment of  unknown  form  for  killing  snakes,  frogs, 
ants,  etc.),  in  the  other  the  Baresma,  a  bundle  of 
twigs,  uneven  in  number — five,  seven,  or  nine — prob- 
ably divining-rods,  without  which  the  priest  never 
appeared  in  public*  Near  the  atesh-gah  stands  a 
stone  table,  set  forth  with  the  sacred  utensils  for  the 
performance  of  the  daily  Haoma-sacrifice,  which, 
though  ignored  and  probably  abolished  by  the 
prophet,  has  resumed  its  place  of  honor  in  the  reli- 
gious practice  of  this  essentially  Aryan  people.  It 
should  be  mentioned,  however,  that  the  sacrificial 
drink  was  prepared  from  another  plant  than  the 
Hindu  Soma, — one  that  grows  in  Eran,  and  the  juice 
of  which  is  far  less  intoxicating,  nor  is  it  subjected 
to  a  process  of  fermentation.  Besides,  only  a  small 
quantity  was  drunk  by  one  of  the  officiating  priests, 
after  the  liquor  had  been  consecrated  by  being  raised 
before  the  sacred  flame,  "shown  to  the  fire."f  The 
mystic  rite  is  thus  shorn  of  its  coarsest  and  most  ob- 

*  Originally  the  twigs  for  the  Barcsma  were  to  be  cut,  with  cer- 
tain ceremonies,  from  either  a  tamarind  or  a  pomegranate  tree,  or  any 
tree  that  had  no  thorns.  The  modern  Parsis  have,  very  prosaically, 
substituted  flexible  rods  of  brass  wire. 

f  This  is  the  identical  Haoma-sacrifice  of  the  modern  Parsis,  as 
witnessed  and  described  by  Dr.  Martin  Haug. 


TONGS    TO   TRIM    SACRED    FIRE. 


SAUCERS   FOR   MILK    AND    FRUIT   OFFERINGS   ("MYAZDA"). 


CUP    FOR    HOLY    WATER 
("  ZAOTHRA.") 


LADLE    FOR    ABLUTIONS     AND 
PURIFICATIONS. 


HAOMA-KNIFE. 


HAOMA-MORTAR   AND    PESTLE. 


HAOMA-STRAINER. 


"  BARESMA  "  (bARSOM)  WITH  STAND. 
lO.    SACRIFICIAL    IMPLEMENTS    USED    IN    PARSI    WORSHIP. 


I20  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

noxious  feature,  the  intoxication  in  which  it  too 
often  ended  in  India,  and  becomes  purely  symbolical. 
Such,  too,  is  the  character  of  the  other  offerings, 
consisting  of  a  few  bits  of  meat  (to  which  the  mod- 
ern Parsis  have  substituted  a  little  milk  in  a  cup), 
some  small  cakes,  and  some  fruit,  all  of  which,  more- 
over (representing  the  various  kinds  of  human  food), 
are  not  consumed  in  the  fire  of  the  altar,  but  only 
held  up  before  it,  presented,  so  to  speak,  as  a 
symbolical  offering  and  for  consecration.  The 
Yasna  and  Vispered  continually  invoke  and  glorify 
these  parts  of  the  daily  sacrifice  ;  the  Haoma,  the 
Myazda  (offering  of  meat  or  milk,  cake  and  fruit), 
and  the  ZaOTHRA  (holy  water),  together  with  the 
Baresma  (bundle  of  sacred  twigs),  and  the  sacrificial 
vessels — mortar  and  pestle,  strainer,  cups,  etc. — are 
exalted  as  the  most  fiend-smiting  of  weapons.  "  The 
sacred  mortar,  the  sacred  cup,  the  Haoma,  the  Words 
taught  by  Mazda  (manthras),  these  are  my  weapons, 
my  best  weapons  !  "  Zarathushtra  is  made  to  say(Ven- 
didad,  XIX.).  Nay,  in  a  poetical  introduction  to  the 
long  and  elaborate  hymn  to  Haoma  (Yasna,  IX.),  the 
heavenly  Haoma,  "the  Holy  One  who  driveth  death 
afar,"  appears  to  Zarathushtra,  incarnate,  in  human 
form,  clothed  with  a  body  of  marvellous  beauty,  at 
the  sacred  hour  of  sunrise,  while  the  prophet  is 
"  tending  the  sacred  fire  and  chanting  the  Gathas." 
Whereupon  a  dialogue  ensues,  in  which  Haoma  bids 
Zarathushtra  "  Pray  to  me,  O  Spitama,  and  prepare 
me  for  the  taste  "  (z.  e.,  press  and  strain  the  juice  of  the 
plant  Haoma),  and  tells  him  of  the  heroes  who,  "  the 
first  of  men,  prepared  him  for  the  incarnate  world," 


THE   VENDIDAD.  —  THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.    121 

and  obtained  as  a  reward  glorious  and  renowned  sons. 
The  first  of  these  was  Vivanghat,  father  of  the  great 
Yima  (see  pp.  89-93),  the  king  of  the  golden  age ; 
and  the  last  Purushaspa,  the  father  of  Zarathushtra 
himself,  who,  having  heard  the  wondrous  revelation, 
speaks :  "  Praise  to  Haoma  !  Good  is  Haoma,  well- 
endowed,  healing,  beautiful  in  form.  .  .  .  golden- 
hued,.  and  with  bending  sprouts.  .  .  ."  This  long 
narrative  is  one  of  the  few  passages  in  the  Avesta 
which  are  brimful  of  ancient  mythic  lore. 

5.  "  Which  is  the  first  place  where  the  Earth  feels 
most  happy?"  asks  Zarathushtra  of  Ahura-Mazda, 
who  replies  (Vendidad,  III.)  :  "  It  is  the  place  where- 
on one  of  the  faithful  steps  forward  with  the  holy 
wood  in  his  hand,  the  baresma,  the  holy  meat,  the 
holy  mortar,  fulfilling  the  law  with  love. 
The  description  of  the  other  places  where  the  Earth 
feels  most  happy  presents  the  complete  Eranian 
ideal  of  a  prosperous  and  holy  life. 

"  It  is  where  one  of  the  faithful  erects  a  house  with  cattle,  wife, 
and  children,  and  where  the  cattle  go  on  thriving  ;  the  dog,  the  wife, 
the  child,   the  fire  are  thriving,  and  every  blessing  of   life     . 
where  one  of    the  faithful    cultivates  most  corn,  grass,  and   fruit  ; 
where  he  waters  ground  that  is  dry,  or  dries  ground  that  is  too  wet 

where   there   is   most  increase  of  flocks  and  herds     . 
and  where  they  yield  most  manure. " 

It  is  the  perfection  of  a  farm. 

"  He  who  would  till  the  earth  " — it  is  still  Aliura  who  speaks — 
"with  the  left  arm  and  the  right,  wiih  the  right  arm  and  the  left,  unto 
him  will  she  bring  forth  plenty,  like  a  loving  bride  unto  her  beloved. 
.  .  .  Unto  him  thus  says  the  Earth  :  '  O  thou  man  who  dost  till 
me  with  the  left  arm  and  the  right,  with  the  right  arm  and  the  left  ! 
here  shall  I  ever  go  on  bearing,  bringing  forth  all  manner  of  food, 
bringing  forth  profusion  of  corn.' 


122  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

"  He  who  does  not  till  the  earth,  O  Spitama  Zarathushtra  !  with  the 
left  arm  and  the  right,  with  the  right  arm  and  the  left,  unto  him 
thus  says  the  Earth  ;  '  O  thou  man  !  .  .  .  ever  shalt  thou  stand  at 
the  door  of  the  stranger,  among  those  who  beg  for  bread  ;  ever  shalt 
thou  wait  there  for  the  refuse  that  is  brought  unto  thee,  brought  by 
those  who  have  profusion  of  wealth.'  " 

6.  "He  who  sows  corn  sows  holiness" 
(Vendidad,  III.,  31).  Where  there  is  plenty  and 
prosperity  there  is  no  room  for  wickedness — no  room 
for  envy,  violence,  rapine,  and  all  evil  passions ;  be- 
sides, honest  toil  leaves  no  time  for  evil  thoughts, 
evil  words,  and  evil  deeds.  This  great  truth  is  thus 
expressed  in  quaint,  truly  Avestan  phrase : 

"When  barley  is  coming  forth,  the  daevas  start  up  ;  when  the 
corn  IS  growing  rank,  then  faint  the  daevas'  hearts  ;  when  the  corn 
is  being  ground,  the  daevas  groan  ;  when  wheat  is  coming  forth,  the 
daevas  are  destroyed.  In  that  house  they  can  no  longer  stay  ;  from 
that  house  they  are  beaten  away,  wherein  wheat  is  thus  coming 
forth.  It  is  as  though  red-hot  iron  were  turned  about  in  their 
throats,  when  there  is  plenty  of  corn." 

Therefore,  to  "  sow  corn  "  is  more  meritorious 
than  "  a  hundred  acts  of  adoration,  a  thousand  obla- 
tions, ten  thousand  sacrifices." 

7.  But,  sowing  corn — and  holines.s — and  routing 
the  daevas  by  the  toil  of  "  the  left  arm  and  the 
right,  the  right  arm  and  the  left,"  requires  bodily 
strength  and  endurance.  So  this  most  practical  and 
rational  of  religious  laws  proceeds,  with  admirable 
consistency,  to  enjoin  proper  care  of  that  necessary 
servant — the  body  : 

"  Then  let  the  priest  teach  his  people  this  holy  saying :  '  No  one 
who  does  not  eat  has  strength  to  do  works  of  holiness,  strength  to  do 
works  of  husbandry.  ...  By  eating  every  material  creature 
lives,  by  not  eating  it  dies  away.'  " 


THE   VENDIDAD. —  THE  LESSER  A  VESTA.    12^ 

Not  only  are  practices  of  abstinence  and  asceti- 
cism— the  so-called  ''  mortification  of  the  flesh  " — not 
praised  or  encouraged,  but — and  herein  Avestan 
Mazdeism  differs  from  almost  every  other  religion — 
they  are  condemned,  denounced  as  a  foolish  and 
wicked  error,  that  strengthens  the  hands  of  the 
Arch  Enemy. 

"Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  O  Spitama  Zarathushtia  !  the  man  who 
has  a  wife  is  far  above  him  who  begets  no  sons  ;  he  who  keeps  a 
house  is  far  above  him  who  has  none  ;  he  who  has  childi^en  is  far 
above  the  childless  man  *  ;  he  who  has  riches  is  far  above  him  who 
has  none.  And,  of  two  men,  he  who  fills  himself  with  meat  is 
filled  with  the  good  spirit  much  more  than  he  who  does  not  do  so. 
It  is  this  man  who  can  strive  against  the  onsets  of  the 
Death-fiend  f  ;  that  can  strive  against  the  winter-fiend,  with  thinnest 
garments  on  ;  that  can  strive  against  the  wicked  tyrant  and  smite 
him  on  the  head  ;  that  can  strive  against  the  ungodly  Ashemaogha 
(heretic,  false  teacher),  who  does  not  eat."  \  (Vendidad,  IV.) 

8.  Symmetry,  that  inevitable  characteristic  of  a 
system  of  universal  dualism,  pervades  the  Vendidad 

*  Herodotus  tells  us  that  in  his  time  prizes  were  given  in  Persia  by 
the  king  to  those  who  had  most  children  ;  while  sacred  texts  of  the 
Pehlevi  period  expressly  declare  that  "he  who  has  no  child,  the 
bridge  of  paradise  shall  be  barred  to  him." 

f  AsTO-ViDHOTU,"  the  bone-divider,"  who  has  a  noose  round  every 
man's  neck,  and  is  the  immediate  cause  of  death.  So  that  we  are 
told  (Vendidad,  V.)  that  water  and  fire  kill  no  man  ;  the  holy  ele- 
ments could  not  do  the  work  of  Angra-Mainyu.  No,  it  is  Asto- 
Vidhotu  who  "  ties  the  noose,"  then  "the  flood  takes  the  man  up,  or 
down,  or  throws  him  ashore  "  ;  or  the  fire  burns  up  the  body  previ- 
ously killed  by  the  fiend. 

:j:  This  thrust,  if  the  passage  be  comparatively  ancient  (B.C.),  may 
be  pointed  against  the  Hindu  Brahmen,  or  Buddhists,  both  great 
adepts  at  ascetic  practices.  If  belonging  to  Sassanian  Mazdeism,  it 
would  be  directed  against  the  Manichaeans,  a  Persian  sect,  which 
enjoined  fasting  and  abstinence  of  every  sort. 


124  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

in  form  and  substance.  Every  set  of  definitions,  of 
queries  and  answers,  is  exactly  matched  by  its  cor- 
responding opposite  set.  So,  after  ascertaining  from 
Ahura-Mazda  what  are  the  places  where  the  Earth 
feels  most  happy,  Zarathushtra  proceeds  to  inquire 
what  are  the  places  where  she  feels  sorest  grief,  and 
receives,  among  others,  the  following  replies  :  ".  .  . 
It  is  the  place  wherein  most  corpses  of  dogs  and  men 
lie  buried.  .  .  .  It  is  the  place  whereon  stand 
most  of  those  Dakhmas,  whereon  corpses  of  men 
are  deposited.     .     .     ." 

The  Dakhma — also  called  by  the  modern  Parsis 
"  the  Tower  of  Silence  " — is  the  burying-place,  or 
rather,  the  cemetery,  for  the  name  of  "  burial  "  would 
ill  become  the  singular  and,  to  us,  revolting  way  in 
which  the  Mazdayasnians  of  Northern  Eran  disposed 
of  their  dead,  religiously  followed  therein  by  their 
Parsi  descendants.  This  brings  us  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  most  extraordinary  refinement  of  logical 
consistency  ever  achieved  by  human  brains. 

9.  Given  the  two  absolute  premises:  1st,  that  the 
elements  are  pure  and  holy  and  must  not  be  defiled  ; 
2d,  that  the  essence  of  all  impurity  is  death,  as  the 
work  of  the  Angra-Mainyu,  "  the  Spirit  who  is  all 
death,"  and  who  takes  undisputed  possession  of  the 
human  body  the  moment  that  the  breath  of  life,  the 
gift  of  Ahura-Mazda,  has  left  it, — the  question, 
"  What  is  to  be  done  with  the  dead  ?  "  becomes  an 
exceedingly  complicated  and  difificult  one.  The 
presence  of  a  corpse  pollutes  the  air  ;  to  bury  it  in 
the  earth  or  sink  it  into  the  water  were  equally  sacri- 
legious ;  to  burn  it  in  the  fire,  after  the  manner  of 


THE   VENDIDAD. —  THE   LESSER  A  VESTA.    1 25 

the  Hindus  and  so  many  Indo-European  nations, 
would  be  the  height  of  impiety,  an  inexpiable  crime, 
involving  no  end  of  calamities  to  the  whole  country. 
Only  one  way  is  open  :  to  let  the  bodies  of  the  dead 
be  devoured  by  wild  animals  or  birds.  Such,  in- 
deed, is  the  law :  the  corpses  shall  be  taken  to  a 
distance  from  human  dwellings  and  holy  things,  if 
possible  into  the  wilderness,  where  no  men  or  cattle 
pass,  and  be  exposed  "  on  the  highest  summits, 
where  they  know  there  are  always  corpse-eating  dogs 
and  corpse-eating  birds,"  and  there  be  fastened  by 
the  feet  and  by  the  hair  with  weights  of  brass,  stone, 
or  lead,  lest  the  dogs  and  birds  carry  portions  of  the 
flesh  or  bones  to  the  water  and  to  the  trees  and  thus 
defile  them.  The  worshippers  of  Mazda  are  enjoined, 
"  if  they  can  afford  it,  to  erect  a  building  for  the 
purpose  of  exposing  the  dead,  of  stone  and  mortar, 
out  of  the  reach  of  the  dog,  the  wolf,  the  fox,  and 
wherein  rain-water  cannot  stay*;  if  they  cannot 
afford  it,  they  shall  lay  down  the  dead  man  on  the 
ground,  on  his  carpet  and  his  pillow,  clothed  with 
the  light  of  heaven  (/.  e.,  naked),  and  beholding  the 
sun." 

10.  Such  is  the  origin  of  the  Dakhmas  or  Towers 
of  Silence.  We  give  the  description  of  one  of 
these    unique    cemeteries   in  the  words  of  the   dis- 

*  This  last  clause,  like  many  other  minute  prescriptions,  is 
founded  on  the  very  correct  conclusion  that  it  is  moisture  which  re- 
tains and  carries  pollution — infection, — and  must  be  considered  as  a 
sanitary  provision.  A  corpse  of  a  year's  standing  and  dried  up  does 
not  pollute  ;  even  the  site  of  a  Dakhma  is  pure  once  more,  when  the 
bones  are  reduced  to  dust  ;  for  it  is  said  :  "  The  dry  mingles  not  with 
the  dry." 


126  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

tinguished  Parsi  writer  who  has  been  quoted  once 
already  * : 

"  A  circular  platform  about  3C>o  feet  in  circumference,  entirely 
paved  with  large  stone  slabs  and  divided  into  three  rows  of  exposed 
receptacles,  called /aj'/j-,  for  the  bodies  of  the  dead.  As  there  are 
the  same  number  of  pavis  in  each  concentric  row,  they  diminish  in 
size  from  the  outer  to  the  inner  ring,  so  that  by  the  side  of  the  wall 
is  used  for  the  bodies  of  males,  the  next  for  those  of  females,  and 
the  third  for  those  of  children.  These  receptacles,  or  pavis,  are 
separated  from  each  other  by  ridges  which  are  about  one  inch  in 
height,  and  channels  are  cut  into  \hQ  pavis  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
veying all  the  liquid  matter  flowing  from  the  corpses  and  rain-water 
into  a  bhandar,  or  deep  hollow  in  the  form  of  a  pit,  the  bottom  of 
wljich  is  paved  with  stone  slabs.  This  pit  forms  the  centre  of  the 
tower.  When  the  corpse  has  been  completely  stripped  of  its  flesh 
by  the  vultures,  which  is  generally  accomplished  within  an  hour  at 
the  outside,  and  when  the  bones  of  the  denuded  skeleton  are  perfectly 
dried  up  by  the  powerful  heat  of  a  tropical  sun  and  other  atmos- 
pheric influences,  they  are  thrown  into  the  pit,  where  they  crumble 
into  dust — the  rich  and  poor  meeting  together  after  death  in  one 
common  level  of  equality.  Four  drains  are  constructed. 
They  commence  from  the  wall  of  the  bhandar  and  pass  beyond  the 
outside  of  the  tower  down  into  four  wells,  sunk  into  the  ground  at 
equal  distances.  At  the  mouth  of  each  drain  charcoal  and  sand  are 
placed  for  purifying  the  fluid  before  it  enters  the  ground,  thus  ob- 
serving one  of  the  tenets  of  the  Zoroastrian  religion  that  '  the 
mother  earth  shall  not  be  defiled.'  The  wells  have  a  permeable 
bottom,  which  is  covered  with  sand  to  a  height  of  five  or  seven  feet. 
These  Dakhmas,  or  Towers  of  Silence,  are  built  upon  one  plan,  but 
their  size  may  and  does  vary.f 

"  When  the  Parsis  begin  to  build  a  Dakhma,  .  .  .  they  fix 
nails  in  the  ground  and  enclose  it  by  a   thread,  indicating  thereby 

*  Dosabhai  Framji  Karaka,  "  History  of  the  Parsis,"  vol.  I., 
pp.  200  and  ff. 

f  Dimensions  of  the  Dakhma  at  Navsari  :  interior  diameter,  62 
feet  ;  outer  diameter  (from  the  outside  of  the  wall),  70  feet  ;  diameter 
of  the  "  bhandar,"  20  feet  ;  maximum  height  of  the  tower,  16  feet ; 
height  of  granite  platform,  8  feet. 


SECTION.       TOTAL   HEIGHT   ABOUT    l6    FEET. 


VIEW    OF   THE    INTERIOR.       OUTER    DIAMETER    ABOUT   70   FEET. 


THE    "  PAVI." 
II. — A    "DAKHMA,"    OR    "TOWER   OF    SILENCE. 


128  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

that  only  that  particular  portion  of  the  ground  shall  be  set  apart  for 
the  dead.  .  .  .  Iron  nails  are  used.*  .  .  .  The  structure 
is  separated  from  the  adjoining  ground  by  digging  a  trench  all  round 
it,  about  one  foot  deep  and  wide." 

It  is  evident  from  the  tone  of  this  passage  that  the 
author  entirely  approves  of  this  peculiar  treatment 
of  the  dead.  Certain  it  is  that  the  Parsis  contem- 
plate it  without  repulsion  for  themselves,  and  claim 
that  it  is  at  all  events  the  most  perfect  solution  of 
the  sanitary  question — which  it  undoubtedly  is, 
especially  in  hot,  yet  moist,  tropical  climes.  As  a 
solemn  reminder  of  the  equality  of  all  men  before 
the  laws  of  nature,  and  an  efficient  preventive  to  the 
vanities  of  funeral  pomp  and  posthumous  distinctions, 
the  custom  is  also  entitled  to  respect. 

II.  The  attempt  to  carry  out  the  exaggerated 
notion  of  the  purity  of  the  elements  and  the  impur- 
ity of  death  with  the  most  rigorous  consistency, 
involves  the  priestly  lawgivers  in  endless  contradic- 
tions, places  them  in  the  most  puzzling  predicaments. 
They  become  conscious  that  so  many  occasions  of 
pollution  arise  which  are  wholly  beyond  their  con- 
trol, that  existence  threatens  to  become  impossible, 
unless  they  draw  the  line  somewhere  on  this  side  of 
what  may  be  termed  the  reduction  ad  absiirduni  of 
their  doctrines.  This  they  do  in  the  form  of  an  extra 
revelation,  contained  in  a  special  chapter  of  the 
Vendidad  (Fargard  V.),  wherein  Zarathushtra  is  made 

*  Thus  also  the  stretcher  on  which  the  dead  are  carried  must  be 
of  iron.  Metal  is  supposed  to  retain  infection  less  than  any  other 
substance.  According  to  the  laws  of  purification  a  tainted  vessel  of 
metal  can  be  cleansed,  while  one  of  wood  cannot,  but  remains  u-v 
clean  forever  and  ever. 


130  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

to  propound  nice  and  puzzling  points,  in  the  form  of 
hypothetical  cases,  for  Ahura-Mazda  to  solve.  We 
give  the  first  part  of  this  curious  dialogue  whole,  as 
a  specimen  : 

"  There  dies  a  man  in  the  depths  of  the  vale  :  a  bird  takes  flight 
from  the  top  of  the  mountain  down  into  the  depths  of  the  vale,  and 
it  eats  up  the  corpse  of  the  dead  man  there  ;  then  up  it  flies  from  the 
depths  of  the  vale  to  the  top  of  the  mountain,  it  flies  to  some  one  of 
the  trees  there,  of  the  hard- wooded  or  the  soft-wooded,  and  upon 
that  tree  it  vomits,  it  deposits  dung,  it  drops  pieces  of  the  corpse. 

"  Now,  lo  !  here  is  a  man  coming  up  from  the  depths  of  the  vale  to 
the  top  of  the  mountain  ;  he  comes  to  the  tree  whereon  the  bird  is 
sitting,  from  that  tree  he  wants  to  have  wood  for  the  fire.  He  fells 
the  tree,  he  hews  the  tree,  he  splits  it  into  logs,  and  then  he  lights  it 
on  the  fire,  the  son  of  Ahura-Mazda.  What  is  the  penalty  that  he 
shall  pay  ?  " 

Ahura-Mazda  answered  :  "  There  is  no  sin  upon  a  man  for  any 
dead  matter  that  has  been  brought  by  dogs,  birds,  by  wolves,  by 
winds,  or  by  flies. 

"  For,  were  there  sin  upon  a  man  for  any  dead  matter  that  might 
have  been  brought  by  dogs,  by  birds,  by  wolves,  by  winds,  or  by  flies, 
how  soon  this  material  world  of  mine  would  have  in  it  only  Peshd- 
ta7ius  "  (/.  t'.,  people  guilty  of  death),  "  shut  out  from  the  way  of 
holiness,  whose  souls  will  cry  and  wail  !  "  (After  death,  being 
driven  away  from  paradise.) 

In  like  manner  the  agriculturist  is  not  to  be  held 
responsible  for  any  dead  matter  that  any  animal  may 
have  brought  into  the  stream  that  waters  his  field. 
Zarathushtra  next  takes  Ahura-Mazda  himself  to 
task  for  apparent  violation  of  his  own  laws  : 

"  O  Maker  of  the  material  world,  thou  Holy  One  !  Is  it  true  that 
thou,  Ahura-Mazda,  sendest  the  waters  from  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha 
down  with  the  wind  and  with  the  clouds,  and  makest  them  flow 
down  to  the  corpses  ?  That  thou,  Ahura-Mazda,  makest  them  flow 
down  to  the  Dakhmas,  to  the  unclean  remains,  to  the  bones  ?  And 
that  thou,  Ahura-Mazda,  makest  them  flow  back  unseen?     .     .     ." 


THE   VENDIDAD.  —  THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.    I31 

To  which  Ahura-Mazda  answers :  ''  It  is  even  so  as 
thou  hast  said,  O  righteous  Zarathushtra !  "  but  ex- 
plains that,  when  the  rain-water,  thus  polluted,  re- 
turns unseen  to  whence  it  came  (by  evaporation),  it 
is  first  cleansed  in  a  special  heavenly  reservoir,  called 
the  sea  PuiTIKA,  from  which  it  runs  back  into  the  sea 
Vouru-Kasha  as  pure  as  ever,  and  as  fit  to  water  the 
roots  of  the  sacred  trees  that  grow  there  (the  Gaok- 
erena  and  the  tree  of  All-Seeds,  see  p.  65),  and  to 
rain  down  again  upon  the  earth,  to  bring  food  to 
men  and  cattle. 

12.  The  same  inevitable  inconsistency  shows  itself 
in  the  feeling  about  the  Dakhmas.  Although  the 
existence  of  these  constructions  is  a  matter  of  abso- 
lute necessity,  we  saw  above  that  the  sites  on  which 
they  are  erected  are  numbered  among  those  places 
"where  the  earth  feels  sorest  grief."  Nay,  they  are 
denounced,  on  unimpeachable  hygienic  grounds,  as 
the  trysting  places  of  all  the  fiends — "  where  the 
troops  of  daevas  rush  together,  to  kill  their  fifties 
and  their  hundreds,  their  thousands  and  their  tens 
of  thousands.  .  .  .  Thus  the  fiends  revel  on  there 
as  long  as  the  stench  is  rooted  in  the  Dakhmas. 
Thus  from  the  Dakhmas  arise  the  infection  of  diseases, 
fevers,  humors.  .  .  .  There  death  has  most  power  on 
man  from  the  hour  when  the  sun  is  down."  And,  al- 
though the  building  of  Dakhmas  has  at  all  times  been 
considered  a  meritorious  act  of  piety,  we  are  told  that 
the  man  who  gladdens  the  earth  with  greatest  joy  is, 
first,  "  he  who  digs  out  of  it  most  corpses  of  dogs  and 
men,"  and,  second,  "  he  who  pulls  down  most  of  those 
Dakhmas  on  which  corpses  of  men  are  deposited." 


132  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

"  Urge  every  one  in  the  material  world,  O  Spitama  Zarathush- 
tra  i  "  Ahura-Mazda  is  made  to  say,  "  to  pull  down  Dakhmas.  He 
who  should  pull  down  thereof,  even  so  much  as  the  size  of  his  own 
body,  his  sins  in  thought,  word,  and  deed  are  atoned  for.  Not  for 
his  soul  shall  the  two  spirits  wage  war  with  one  another,  and  when 
he  enters  the  blissful  world,  the  stars,  the  moon,  and  the  sun  shall 
rejoice  in  him,  and  I,  Ahura-Mazda,  shall  rejoice  in  him,  saying: 
'  Hail,  O  man  !  thou  who  hast  just  passed  from  the  decaying  world 
into  the  undecaying  one  ! '  "     (Vendidad,  VII.) 

13,  And  yet — such  is  the  tyranny  of  circum- 
stances— not  only  must  the  earth  endure  the  pollu- 
tion of  Dakhmas,  and  men  go  on  building  them, 
but  there  may  arise  even  worse  complications,  which 
have  to  be  met  in  some  way.  There  is  no  desecra- 
tion, no  calamity  equal  to  the  presence  or  vicinity  of 
a  corpse  ;  but  men  die  at  all  seasons,  and  what  is  to 
be  done  in  winter — those  terribly  severe  winters  of 
Central  Asia — when  the  Dakhma,  built  at  a  more  or 
less  considerable  distance  from  the  villages,  cannot 
be  reached  ?  Zarathushtra  places  the  case  before 
Ahura-Mazda,  (Vendidad,  Fargards   V.   and  VIII.): 

"  O  maker  of  the  material  world,  thou  Holy  One  !  If  in  the 
house  of  a  Ma/.dayasnian  a  dog  or  a  man  happens  to  die,  and  it  is 
raining  or  snowing,  or  blowing,  or  the  darkness  is  coming  on,  when 
flocks  and  men  lose  their  way,  what  shall  the  Mazdayasnians  do?" 

Ahura-Mazda's  instruction  is,  to  choose  the  most 
sequestered  and  driest  spot  near  the  house,  at  least 
thirty  paces  from  the  water,  the  fire,  and  the  inhabited 
parts  of  the  dwelling,  and  there  temporarily  to  place 
the  body  in  a  grave  dug  half  a  foot  in  the  ground 
if  it  be  frozen  hard,  or  half  the  height  of  a  man  if  it 
be  soft,  covering  the  grave  with  dust  of  bricks,  stones, 
dry  earth  : — 


THE   VEND/DAD.  —  THE   LESSEJi   A  VESTA.    I  33 

"  And  they  shall  let  the  lifeless  body  lie  there  until  the  birds  be- 
gin to  fly,  the  plants  to  grow,  the  floods  to  flow,  and  the  wind  to  dry  up 
the  waters  off  the  earth.  .  .  .  Then  the  worshippers  of  Mazda  shall 
make  a  breach  in  the  wall  of  the  house,  and  they  shall  call  for  two 
men,  strong  and  skilful  ;  and  those  having  stripped  their  clothes 
off,  shall  take  the  body  to  the  building  of  clay,  stones,  and  mortar, 
where  they  know  there  are  always  corpse-eating  dogs  and  corpse- 
eating  birds." 

In  another  place,  (Fargard  V.)  Ahura-Mazda  di- 
rects that  in  every  borough  there  shall  be  raised,  in 
the  prevision  of  such  an  emergency,  "  three  small 
houses  for  the  dead,"  large  enough  that  a  man  stand- 
ing erect  in  such  a  house  should  not  strike  his  skull, 
nor,  should  he  stretch  out  his  hands  and  feet,  strike 
the  walls  with  them. 

14.  Proportionate  to  the  merit  of  relieving  the 
Earth  from  the  pollution  which  is  "sorest  grief"  to 
her,  is  the  sin  of  wilfully  inflicting  such  grief  on  her 
by  burying  the  corpse  of  a  dog  or  of  a  man  ;  and  as 
any  sin  or  guilt  is  removed  by  the  former  act,  so  no 
punishment,  not  even  death  in  this  world,  can  atone 
for  the  latter,  if  the  offender  does  not  repent  and 
disinter  the  corpse  before  the  end  of  two  years  : 
"For  that  deed  there  is  nothing  that  can  pay  .  .  . 
nothing  than  can  cleanse  from  it  ;  it  is  a  trespass  for 
which  there  is  no  atonement  for  ever  and  forever"  ; 
which  means  that  the  offender's  soul  must  go  to 
hell  and  stay  there  until  the  general  resurrection. 
Provided  always  that  he  is  a  professer  of  Mazdeism 
and  has  been  taught  the  law,  for  contrariwise  he 
does  not  know  that  he  is  committing  a  sin,  and  can- 
not in  justice  be  held  responsible  for  it. 

15.  This  principle,  sound  as  it  is  in  itself,   culmi- 


134  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

nates  in  strange  anomalies,  when  applied  with  the 
tenacious  but  one-sided  logic  of  the  race  :  thus  it  is 
only  the  corpses  of  Mazdayasnians  and  animals  be- 
longing to  the  good  creation  of  Ahura  which  defile 
the  elements  and  endanger  the  living.  The  corpse 
of  a  Khrafstra  is  harmless :  "  as  its  life  was  incarnate 
death,  the  spring  of  life  that  was  in  it  is  dried  up 
with  its  last  breath  ;  it  killed  while  alive,  it  can  do 
so  no  more  when  dead — it  becomes  clean  by  dying." 
The  same  is  said  of  an  Ashemaogha  or  heretic. 
(Vendidad,  V.) 

1 6.  Very  nearly  one  half  of  the  Vendidad  is 
filled  with  prescriptions  about  purification  and 
atonement  for  every  kind  of  uncleanness,  involun- 
tary or  unavoidably  incurred.  Sickness  of  every 
kind  is  looked  upon  in  the  light  of  possession,  and 
the  sick,  accordingly,  are  treated  more  like  criminals 
than  suffering  brethren  :  sequestered  in  rooms  built 
for  the  purpose,  away  from  the  fire,  from  the  light 
of  the  sun,  nourished  sparingly,  as  the  food  they 
took  would  strengthen  the  fiend  who  has  taken  up 
his  abode  in  them,  scarcely  permitted  to  touch 
water  even  to  drink,  for  fear  of  defiling  the  pure 
element,  unapproached  by  the  inmates  save  in  case  of 
absolute  necessity  and  with  humiliating  precautions, 
— such  as  having  the  food  passed  to  them  in  ladles 
with  very  long  handles, — and  covered  with  coarse 
clothes  thriftily  kept  on  purpose  for  such  occasions. 

17.  Thriftiness,  indeed,  is  enjoined  on  the  faithful 
as  a  matter  of  salvation  : 

"  Ahura-Mazda  does  not  allow  us  to  waste  any  thing  of  value  that 
we  may  have,  not  even  so  much   as   a  small   silver  coin's  weight   of 


THE   VENDIDAD. —  THE   LESSER  A  VESTA.     I  35 

thread,  not  even  so  much  as  a  maid  lets  fall  in  spinning.  Whosoerer 
throws  any  clothing  on  a  dead  body  "  (because  it  would  be  wasted, 
as  nothing  could  cleanse  them  of  the  pollution  of  such  contact), 
"  even  so  much  as  a  maid  lets  fall  in  spinning,  is  not  a  pious  man 
whilst  alive,  nor  shall  he,  when  dead,  have  a  place  in  the  happy 
realm.  He  shall  go  away  into  the  world  of  fiends,  into  that  dark 
world,  made  of  darkness,  the  offspring  of  darkness." 

The  modern  Parsis,  indeed,  do  clothe  their  dead, 
but  the  .shroud  must  be  made  of  old,  worn-out  mate- 
rial, the  older  the  better,  only  well  washed. 

18.  But  the  most  horrible  and  dangerous  of 
fiends  is  the  fiend  of  corruption  and  contagion,  per- 
sonified in  the  Druj  Nasu,  who  takes  possession  of 
the  body  at  the  very  instant  that  the  breath  leaves 
it,  "  rushing  upon  it  from  the  regions  of  the  north,* 
in  the  shape  of  a  raging  fly,  .  .  .  the  foulest  of 
Khrafstras,"  and  thence,  as  from  a  citadel,  deals  "  in- 
fection, pollution,  and  uncleanness "  on  all  around, 
even  to  the  tenth  row  of  those  near  the  corpse,  and 
further  still,  for  each  man  imparts  the  uncleanness 
to  his  neighbor,  only  it  grows  weaker  with  each 
remove  from  the  centre  of  infection, — the  corpse. 
It  has  been  very  plausibly  remarked  that  "  in  the  fly 
which  is  attracted  by  the  smell  of  dead  flesh  they 
saw  the  fiend  which  takes  possession  of  the  corpse 
in  the  name  of  Angra-Mainyu."  (Justi,  "  Geschichte 
der  Perser.")  It  is  to  exorcise  the  Nasu  that  the 
sagdid  ceremony  is  performed  (see  pp.  93-94),  and 
those  same  "  four-eyed  or  yellow-eared  dogs  "  must  be 
made  to  pass  several  times  along  the  way  by  which 

*  Hell  lies  in  the  North,  where  its  entrance  is  in  the  mountains  of 
the  daevas,  Mount  ArezOra. 


136  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

the  corpse  has  been  taken  to  the  Dakhma  before 
men  or  flocks  are  allowed  to  tread  the  same  way. 
As  for  those  who  have  been  compelled  to  touch 
a  corpse,  (whether  of  a  dog  or  a  man,  the  dog  being 
an  eminently  sacred  animal),  they  have  to  undergo 
a  thorough  process  of  purification,  by  means  of 
repeated  ablutions.  As  the  "  good  waters  "  reach 
this  or  that  part  of  the  body,  the  Druj  Nasu  is  sup- 
posed to  leave  that  part  and  rush  to  the  next  nearest, 
until  from  spot  to  spot,  beginning  with  the  forepart 
of  the  skull,  the  left  toe  is  reached,  from  which  the 
Nasu  at  length  flies  off  "  to  the  regions  of  the  north  " 
in  her  proper  shape  as  a  hideous  fly.  The  enumera- 
tion of  these  different  spots  of  the  human  body, 
together  with  the  repetition  of  the  formula  of  ex- 
pulsion, all  in  the  usual  dialogue  form,  continues 
through  several  pages,  and  strikes  one,  it  must  be 
confessed,  as  the  most  ludicrous  and  puerile  piece  of 
absurdity.  It  is  in  reading  such  passages  as  this  that 
one  understands  the  objections  raised  by  Anquetil 
Duperron's  enemies  (see  pp.  12-13).  The  purifications 
prescribed  and  regulated  in  the  Avesta,  and  still  ob- 
served by  the  Parsis,  are  very  peculiar  and  exceed- 
ingly disgusting.  Their  essential  feature  is  the  ablu- 
tion with  gomcz,  the  urine  of  cows  or  steers,  a  liquid 
equally  held  sacred  and  cleansing  by  the  Brahmanic 
Hindus.  The  person  to  be  purified  washes  his  or  her 
entire  body  \\\\.\\  gomez,  then  rubs  it  dry  with  hand- 
fuls  of  earth  or  dust,  and  lastly  washes  it  again,  this 
time  with  water.  The  performance  is  repeated  sev- 
eral times.  The  great  purification  takes  nine  nights 
(the  BarasJimhii).     Of  course  these  ceremonies   are 


THE   VENDIDAD. —  THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.     1 37 

performed  and  directed  by  priests,  and  we  saw  above 
(p.  116)  how  jealously,  even  fiercely,  the  clergy  guard- 
ed the  privilege.  Gomc'a  is  used  to  purify  houses, 
clothes,  drinking  vessels,  just  as  we  use  a  disinfec- 
tant ;  the  lips  of  new-born  children  are  moistened 
with  it,  and  the  mothers  are  made  to  swallow  a  con- 
siderable quantity  mixed  with  ashes  before  they  are 
allowed  to  touch  water. 

19.  Never  is  the  corpse-fiend  so  dangerous  as 
when  it  finds  one  of  the  faithful  alone,  unprotected 
by  the  presence  and  prayers  of  another  Mazdayas- 
nian.  Therefore  a  man  who  would  carry  a  corpse 
alone  were  irretrievably  lost  ;  the  Nasu  would  rush 
upon  him,  and  enter  into  him,  and  make  him  unclean 
for  ever  and  for  ever  ;  he  would  become,  so  to  speak, 
a  Nasu  incarnate,  and  must  be  set  apart  from  all 
human  intercourse.  The  directions  concerning  the 
treatment  of  a  "carrier-alone"  arc  the  following: 
an  enclosure  shall  be  erected  on  a  dry  and  barren 
spot,  at  a  distance  from  the  fire,  the  water,  and  all 
holy  things  ;  there  the  "  carrier-alone "  shall  be 
established  and  shall  be  supplied  with  the  coarsest 
food  and  the  most  worn-out  clothes,  and  there  he 
shall  live  until  he  attains  an  advanced  old  age,  when 
he  shall  be  put  to  death  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
unlicensed  purifier  (see  p.  117),  his  death  atoning  for 
his  ofTence  both  in  this  world  and  the  next.  The 
words  used  in  both  passages  are  identical. 

20.  Although  diseases  are  looked  upon  in  the 
Avesta  as  forms  of  demoniac  possession,  yet  we  find 
a  short  chapter  of  the  Vendidad  on  physicians,  their 
modes  of  treatment,  and  the  fees  they  are  entitled 


138  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

to.  As  might  be  expected,  the  precedence  is  given 
to  the  treatment  by  spells,  the  reciting  of  sacred 
texts — manthras : 

"  If  several  healers  offer  themselves  together,  namely  one  vi'ho 
heals  with  the  knife,  one  who  heals  with  herbs,  and  one  who  heals 
with  the  holy  word,  it  is  this  one  who  will  best  drive  away  sickness 
from  the  body  of  the  faithful." 

A  late  commentator,  with  the  sceptic  shrewdness 
born  of  more  fastidious  times,  remarks:  "  It  may  be 
that  he  will  not  relieve,  but  he  will  not  harm  "  ;  so 
advises  to  give  the  conjuring  doctor  a  trial  by  all 
means.  As  to  the  surgeons — the  "  healers  with  the 
knife  " — they  do  not  seem  to  have  enjoyed  unlimited 
confidence,  as  they  were  allowed  to  practise  subject 
to  a  sort  of  examination  which  does  credit  to  the 
shrewdness  of  that  eminently  practical  people,  the 
Eranians  :  they  were  to  try  their  skill  first  on  aliens, 
followers  of  false  religions,  who  were  abandoned 
to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  graduating  students 
much  as  condemned  criminals  were  sometimes  used 
in  the  Middle  Ages  for  experiments  /;/  aniind  vili : 

"  On  worshippers  of  the  daevas  shall  he  first  prove  himself.  .  .  . 
If  he  treat  with  the  knife  a  worshipper  of  the  daevas  and  he  die," 
— and  a  second  and  a  third — "  he  is  unfit  to  practise  the  art  of  heal- 
ing for  ever  and  for  ever.  .  .  .  If  he  shall  ever  attend  any  worship- 
])er  of  Mazda  .  .  .  and  wound  him  with  the  knife,  he  shall  pay 
for  it  the  same  penalty  as  is  paid  for  wilful  murder." 

"  If  he  treat  with  the  knife  a  worshipper  of  the  daevas  and  he  re- 
cover,"— and  a  second  and  a  third — "  then  he  is  fit  to  practise  the 
art  of  healing  for  ever  and  for  ever.  He  may  henceforth  at  his  will 
attend  worshippers  of  Mazda  .  .  .  and  heal  them  with  the 
knife." 

At  all  events  this  is  a  notable  improvement  on  the 


THE   VENDIDAD. —  THE   LESSER   A  I'ESTA.    1 39 

treatments  in  use  in  ancient  Chaldea  and  later  Baby- 
lon.* 

The  fees  are  all  valued  in  kind  :  oxen,  asses,  mares, 
camels,  sheep, — and  graded  according  to  the  rank  and 
wealth  of  the  patient,  so  that  while  "  he  shall  heal 
the  lord  of  a  province  (a  king)  for  the  value  of  a 
chariot  and  four,"  "he  shall  heal  a  sheep  for  the 
value  of  a  meal  of  meat," — for  the  duties  of  a  physi- 
cian were  not  separated  from  those  of  a  veterinary 
surgeon.  The  only  fee  required  of  a  priest  was  "  a 
holy  blessing." 

21.  Not  the  least  peculiar  feature  of  the  Vendidad 
legislation  is  the  exceeding  honor  paid  to  the  dog. 
We  have  repeatedly  seen  the  dog  associated  with 
man,  as  equally  sacred,  possessing  equal  rights  to 
respect,  in  such  phrases  as  :  "  The  corpse  of  a  dog  or 
a  man  "  ;  "  the  murder  of  a  dog  or  a  man."  Rut  that 
is  not  enough  ;  we  find  several  chapters  devoted  to 
the  treatment  of  the  animal  in  health  or  sickness, 
and  the  explanation  of  this  extreme  solicitude  is 
placed  in  the  mouth  of  Ahura-Mazda  himself: 

"  The  dog,  O  Spitama  Zarathushtra  !  I,  Ahura-Mazda  have  made 
self-clothed  and  self-shod,  watchful,  wakeful,  and  sharp-toothed, 
born  to  take  his  food  from  man  and  to  watch  over  man's  goods.  I 
have  made  the  dog  strong  of  body  against  the  evil-doer  and  watch- 
ful over  your  goods,  when  he  is  of  sound  mind.  And  whosoever  shall 
awake  at  his  voice,  neither  shall  the  thief  nor  the  wolf  steal  any  thing 
from  his  house  without  being  warned  ;  the  wolf  shall  be  smitten  and 
torn  to  pieces  ;  he  is  driven  away,  he  flees  away. 

"  .  .  .  If  those  two  dogs  of  mine,  the  shepherd's  dog  and  the 
house-dog  pass  by  the  house  of  any  of  my  faithful  people,  let  them 
never  be  kept  away  from  it.     For  no  house  could  subsist  on  the  earth 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  163. 


I40  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

made  by  Ahura,  but  for  those  two  dogs  of  mine,  the  shepherd's  dog 
and  the  house-dog." 

It  is  because  of  his  dependence  on  man  and  his 
disinterested  service,  — "  watching  goods  none  of 
which  he  receives  " — that  the  dog  should  be  tended 
and  fed  with  "milk  and  fat  with  meat,"  and  giving 
bad  food  to  a  dog  is  accounted  as  great  a  sin  as  serv- 
ing bad  food  to  a  guest ;  nay,  it  is  a  sin  of  the  first 
magnitude  to  give  a  dog  too  hard  bones  or  too  hot 
food,  so  that  the  bones  stick  in  his  teeth  or  throat 
and  the  food  burns  his  mouth  or  his  tongue.  And 
"  if  a  man  shall  smite  a  house-dog  or  a  shepherd's 
dog  so  that  it  gives  up  the  ghost  and  the  soul  parts 
from  the  body,"  not  only  will  that  man  be  severely 
punished  for  the  deed,  but  his  soul  shall  not  in  the 
other  world  be  defended  from  the  howling  and  pur- 
suing daevas  by  the  dogs  that  guard  the  Chinvat 
Bridge.  If  there  is  in  a  house  a  scentless  dog  or  a 
mad  dog,  "  they  shall  attend  to  heal  him  in  the  same 
manner  as  they  would  do  one  of  the  faithful,"  and  if 
they  fail,  they  shall  put  a  wooden  collar  round  his 
neck  and  tie  him  to  a  post,  lest  he  come  to  harm 
and  the  owners  of  the  house  be  held  responsible  for 
his  death  or  wound.  In  like  manner  a  dog-mother 
must  be  looked  after  exactly  as  a  woman  ;  she  and 
her  litter  must  be  supported  by  the  man  on  whose 
property  the  whelps  were  born,  until  they  are  capable 
of  self-defence  and  self-subsistence,  and  if  he  fails  in 
this,  he  shall  pay  the  penalty  as  for  wilful  murder. 
"Young  dogs,"  it  is  explained,  "  ought  to  be  sup- 
ported for  six  months;  chiklren  for  seven  years." 
Lastly — 


THE   VENDIDAD.  —  THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.    I4I 

"  If  a  man  shall  smite  a  shepherd's  dog  or  a  house-dog  so  that  it 
becomes  unfit  for  work,  if  he  shall  cut  off  its  ear  or  its  paw,  and 
thereupon  a  thief  or  a  wolf  break  in  and  carry  away  sheep  from  the 
fold  or  goods  from  the  house  without  the  dog  giving  any  warning, 
the  man  shall  pay  for  the  lost  goods,  and  he  shall  pay  for  the 
wounds  of  the  dog  as  for  wilful  wounding." 

The  stray  dog — who  has  no  home  or  master — is 
ranked  somewhat  below  those  canine  aristocrats,  the 
shepherd's  dog  and  the  house-dog  ;  still  he  is  entitled 
to  respect  as  he  is  more  especially  used  for  the  Sag- 
aid ;  he  is  compared  to  a  holy  man  of  the  wandering 
class,  a  sort  of  "  begging  friar,"  remarks  Darmesteter. 
The  same  author  informs  us  that  "  the  young  dog 
enters  the  community  of  the  faithful  at  the  age  of 
four  mxOnths,  when  he  can  smite  the  Nasu." 

22.  Other  animals  are  mentioned  in  the  same  chap- 
ters as  varieties  of  dogs,  but  the  passages  are  fanciful 
and  obscure.  Of  greater  interest  are  those  that  re- 
fer to  the  merits  of  the  cock,  the  bird  of  Sraosha, 
the  router  of  daevas,  the  messenger  who  calls  men 
to  the  performance  of  their  religious  duties  : 

"...  the  bird  named  Parodarsh.  .  .  .  that  lifts  up  his  voice 
against  the  mighty  Dawn  :  '  Arise,  O  men  !  .  .  .  Lo  !  here  is 
Bihkyansta*  the  long-handed,  coming  upon  you,  who  lulls  to  sleep 
again  the  whole  living  world,  as  soon  as  it  has  awoke  :  '  Sleep,  she 
says,  sleep  on,  O  man  I  the  time  has  not  yet  come. 

"...  And  then  bedfellows  address  one  another  :  '  Rise  up, 
here  is  the  cock  calling  me  up.'  Whichever  of  the  two  first  gets  up, 
shall  first  enter  paradise,  whichever  of  the  two  shall  first,  with  well- 
washed  hands,  bring  clean  wood  unto  the  Fire,  the  son  of  Ahura- 
Mazda     .     .     . 

"...  And  whosoever  will  kindly  and  piously  present  one 
of  the  faithful  with  a  pair  of  these  my  Parodarsh  birds,  male  and  fe- 

*  A  female  fiend,  personifying  sloth,  immoderate  sleep. 


142  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

male,  it  is  as  though  he  had  given  a  house  with  a  hundred  columns. 
And   whosoever  shall   give   my   Parodarsh   bird   his  till  of 
meat,   I,  Ahura-Mazda,   need  not  interrogate  him  any  longer  ;  he 
shall  directly  go  to  paradise." 

23.  The  merest  perusal  of  the  Vendidad  suffices 
to  show  the  threefold  alteration  which  Mazdeism 
had  undergone  from  the  lofty  simplicity  of  the 
Gathic  period  :  1st,  an  excessive  development  in  the 
direction  of  dogmatism  and  discipline  ;  2d,  the  re- 
vival of  certain  old  heathen  associations  and  ten- 
dencies ;  3d,  the  adoption  of  certain  foreign  ele- 
ments. The  latter  fact  is  easily  accounted  for,  if  we 
remember  that  the  race  of  which  the  Avesta  is  the 
memorial  did  not  w^ork  out  its  spiritual  life  as  a 
compact,  permanently  settled  nation,  but  while  still 
in  a  nomadic,  fluctuating,  migrating  condition.  This 
is  abundantly  siiown  by  such  passages  as,  for  in- 
stance, that  which  prescribes  (Vendidad,  VIII.)  what 
should  be  done  with  the  corpse  of  a  dog  or  a  man, 
if  there  is  no  Dakhma  within  reasonable  distance : 

"  If  they  find  it  easier  to  remove  the  dead  than  to  remove  the  house, 
they  shall  take  out  the  dead,  they  shall  let  the  house  stand,  and  shall 
perfume  it  with  sweet-smelling  plants. 

"  If  they  find  it  easier  to  reinove  the  house  than  to  remove  the  dead, 
they  shall  take  away  the  house,  they  shall  let  the  dead  lie  on  the  spot, 
and  shall  perfume  the  house  with  sweet-smelling  plants." 

What  can  such  a  movable  "  house  "  be  but  a  hut 
of  branches  or  a  tent,  the  nomad's  temporary  shelter? 

24.  Now  we  know  not  only  what,  in  a  general 
way,  the  direction  of  the  Eranian  migration  was — 
from  east  to  west, — but  we  also  know  about  what 
time  they  began  to  reach  the  term  of  that  migration, 


144  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

the  eastern  spurs  and  valleys  of  the  Zagros  region, 
and  the  still  more  rugged  highlands  between  the 
Caspian  Sea  and  the  great  lakes  of  Urartu — Uru- 
mieh  and  Van — -the  district  now  known  as  Ader- 
BEIDJAN,  corrupted  from  the  classic  Atropatene, 
itself  a  transformation  of  an  older  Eranian  name 
meaning  "  Dominion  of  Fire."  We  have  monu- 
mental proof  that  the  Eranian  branch  then  already- 
known  as  Medes  (Madai)  were  dislodging  the  tribes 
among  the  eastern  ridges  of  Zagros,  and  were  them- 
selves attacked  by  the  Assyrian  arms  as  far  back  as 
the  ninth  century  B.C.  under  Raman-Nirari  III.,*  and 
were  probably  mentioned  already  under  that  king's 
grandfather,  the  great  Shalmaneser  II.  We  are 
further  led  to  suppose  that  portions  at  least  of  the 
advancing  Medes  must  have  passed  through  or  near 
the  territories  of  various  savage  and  semi-barbarous 
people  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  the  region 
known  to  later,  classical  antiquity  as  Hyrcania. 
All  this  knowledge  enables  us  to  do  more  than  guess 
at  the  origin  of  certain  observances  prescribed  and 
certain  conceptions  inculcat-ed  in  the  Vendidad,  and 
flowing  from  no  Aryan  sources  assuredly  :  the  use  of 
the  Barcsma,  the  treatment  of  the  dead,  the  treat- 
ment of  diseases  by  conjuring-spells,  the  exaggerated 
reverence  paid  to  the  elements,  the  belief  in  num- 
berless hosts  of  fiends  always  on  the  watch  to 
pounce  on  men  and  draw  them  to  perdition.  Now 
all  these  customs  and  conceptions,  foreign  to  the 
Aryan  spiritual  bent,  are  in  perfect  accordance  with 
what  wo.    know  of  the  Turanian  religious  system ; 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  194. 


146  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

some  of  them  indeed  are  extremely  familiar  to  us 
from  the  texts  and  spells  of  Shumir  and  Accad, — 
ancient  Chaldea,*  and  the  presumption  is  very  strong 
that  the  populations  of  the  Zagros  and  Caspian  re- 
gions which  the  Medes,  in  the  course  of  some  three 
hundred  years,  dislodged  or  reduced  under  their 
rule,  belonged  in  great  part  to  the  division  of  man- 
kind which  the  Eranians  sweepingly  designated  as 
"  Turan  "  (the  Yellow  Race), f  in  opposition  to  them- 
selves. 

25.  There  is  nothing  unnatural  in  the  fact  that  the 
Aryan  conquerors  should  have  been  influenced  by  the 
people  amongst  whom  they  came  ;  indeed  the  con- 
trary would  have  been  rather  remarkable,  since  they 
were  comparatively  few  in  number,  and  it  was  no 
more  than  sound  policy  to  conciliate  the  new  subjects, 
whom  a  military  rule  unsoftened  and  unaided  by 
moral  influence  would  surely  have  been  insufTficicnt 
to  keep  under  control.  For  the  conquerors  to  impose 
on  them  their  own  religion  was  the  first  and  most 
necessary  step  towards  asserting  that  moral  influence, 
but  it  was  a  step  which  could  not  be  achieved  without 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  Chapter  III. 

f  This  presumption  would  now  be  considered  an  established  fact 
but  for  the  violent  opposition  it  has  met  from  the  Assyriologist  and 
Semitist,  Mr.  Halevy,  who  strenuously  denies  the  Turanian  element 
in  the  tribes  conquered  by  the  Medes  and  even  in  ancient  Shumiro- 
Accad  itself.  For  a  long  time  Mr.  Halevy  stood  entirely  alone  ;  he 
was,  however,  joined  by  the  late  S.  Guyard,  and  another  French 
scholar,  Mr.  Pognon,  now  supports  his  views.  Still  this  minority, 
however  eminent,  will  scarcely  prevail  in  the  end.  Besides,  the  views 
held  by  the  two  opposing  camps  are  not,  in  some  cases,  as  irrecon- 
cilable as  they  seem  at  first  sight — at  least  as  respects  the  Median 
conquests. 


THE   VEND/DAD.  —  THE  LESSEN   A  VESTA.    1 47 

numerous  concessions  to  the  local,  already  long  es- 
tablished, religions.  No  new  religion,  however  su- 
perior, ever  supplants  an  older  one  without  such 
concessions ;  in  making  them,  it  grows  familiar 
with  the  lower  standard,  and — such  is  the  innate 
propensity  of  things  to  deterioration — inevitably  be- 
comes tainted  with  the  very  beliefs  and  practices 
which  it  is  its  loftier  mission  to  abolish.  Thus  we 
saw  the  rudimentary  goblin-worship  of  Shumir  and 
Accad  with  all  its  train  of  degrading  superstitions 
(conjuring,  divining,  spell-casting,  etc.)  incorporated 
into  the  far  higher  and  nobler  religious  system  of 
Semitic  Babylonia.*  Moreover,  the  Eranians  were 
notoriously  fond  of  novelty  and  prompt  to  imitate. 
26.  This  question  of  Turanian  influences  trace- 
able in  the  Avesta,  a  question  so  important  for  the 
comprehension  of  what  we  might  call  the  geological 
stratification  of  the  religion  that  grew  out  of  the 
Gathic  revelation,  has  been  made  the  object  of  ex- 
haustive research  by  Mgr.  C.  de  Harlez,  the  French 
translator  of  the  Avesta. f  We  can  do  no  better 
than  follow  his  conclusions,  point  by  point,  as  far 
as  the  peculiar  character  of  a  popular  work  will 
allow. 

1st.  "  The  incantations,  of  which  the  Vendidad  supplies  a  few 
specimens,  assuredly  have  their  origin  in  Shumir  and  Turanian 
Media.  Such  long  and  monotonous  enumerations  as  the  following 
recall  the  Accadian  formulas  :  '  To  thee,  O  Sickness,  I  say  avaunt ! 
to  thee,  O  Death,  I  say  avaunt  !  to  thee,  O  Pain,  I  say  avaunt  !  to 
thee,   O   Fever,  I  say   avaunt  !  to  thee,   O  Disease,  I  say  avaunt  1 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  235-237. 

f  "  Les  Origines  du  Zoroastrisme."  See  also  the  same  writer's 
monumental  "  Introduction  "  to  his  translation  of  the  Avesta, 


143  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

I  drive  away  sickness,  I  drive  away  death,  I  drive  away 
pain  and  fever,  I  drive  away  the  disease,  rottenness,  and  infection 
which  Angra-Mainyu  has  created  by  his  witchcraft  against  the  bodies 
of  mortals.     .     .     .■"     (Vendidad,  XX.)  * 

"  The  multitude  of  daevas  in  the  Avestan  world,  the  belief  in 
their  unremitting  action,  in  their  continual  attacks,  in  the  necessity  of 
incantations  and  conjuration  to  defeat  them,  the  superstitions  such  as 
that  about  the  parings  of  nails  being  turned  into  weapons  for  the 
daevas, f — £tll  this  dark  and  gruesome  side  of  Zoroastrism  is  certainly 
the  product  of  Chaldean  and  Turanian  habits  of  thought. 
To  the  Chaldeans  disease  was  the  work  of  the  fiends  ;  magic  words 
were  the  surest  cure.  Just  so  the  Avesta  tells  us  that  the  best 
physician  is  he  who  heals  with  the  holy  word  (manthra).      .      .      ." 

2d.  The  Baresma  is  probably  due  to  the  same  in- 
fluences. All  Turanian  peoples  have  used  divining 
rods,  and  the  peculiar  direction  to  the  priest  to  hold 
the  bunch  of  twigs  extended  before  him  during  di- 
vine service  points  to  the  notion  that  it  keeps  the 
evil  spirits  from  his  person  and  from  the  altar.  This 
would  also  explain  why  the  Median  priests,  the 
Magi,  were  never  seen  in  public  without  the  Bar- 
esma. Here  another  question  suggests  itself  in  con- 
nection with  the  outer  forms  of  the  Mesopotamian 
religions,  about  which  so  little  is  known  from  lack  of 
documents.  There  is,  on  Assyrian  sculptures,  a  very 
peculiar  object,  which  frequently  recurs  in  scenes  of 
worship  and  sacrifice,  where  it  appears  deposited  on 

*  For  this  and  all  that  follows,  compare  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  Ch. 
IV.,  "  Turanian  Chaldea." 

f  Every  Mazdayasnian  is  directed  to  bury  the  parings  of  his  nails 
in  a  hole  dug  on  purpose  in  the  earth,  reciting  certain  prayers  at  the 
same  time.  If  he  neglects  this  precaution,  '  the  nails  shall  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  daevas  so  many  spears,  knives,  bows,  falcon-winged 
arrows,  and  slingstones."  The  combings  of  hair  and  the  hair  that  is 
cut  or  shaved  off  are  to  be  buried  in  like  manner.   (Vendidad,  XVII.) 


THE   VENDIDAD.—  THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.     1 49 

the  altar.  The  use  of  it,  or  the  nature,  has  never 
yet  been  explained.  But  on  close  inspection  it 
looks  extremely  like  a  bundle  of  twigs,  uneven  in 
number,  tied  together  with  a  ribbon.  Is  it  not 
rather  likely  that  it  may  represent  the  sacred  divin- 
ing rods  and  be  the  original  of  the  Avestan  Bar- 
esma  ?  It  were  a  question  certainly  well  worth  in- 
vestigating. 


15.     ASSYRIAN   ALTAR  (COMPARE  ILL.   lO,    "  liARESMA  WITH  STAND  "). 


3d.  "  The  belief  in  the  Druj  Nasu,  or  corpse-fiend,  in  the  irreme- 
diable pollution  caused  by  corpses  and  all  that  follows  therefrom 
concerning  the  funeral  rites  and  purifications,  the  setting  out  of  the 
dead  to  be  devoured  by  wolves  and  vultures — these  conceptions  and 
customs  belong  neither  to  the  Aryas,  nor  to  the  Chaldeans,  nor  to  the 
Accadians.  They  must  have  originated  in  a  mountainous  country, 
very  little  civilized,  and  under  the  inspiration  of  a  Turanian  people. 
The  Greeks  expressly  tell  us  where  they  were  in  force. 
They  have  ascertained  that  only  the  Bactrians  and  Caspians  fol- 
lowed them,  the  former  partially,  the  latter  entirely." 

The    later    name    of    this   region,    Hyrcania,   has 
become  a  byword  for  savage  fierceness,  and  it  was  un- 


I50  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

doLibtcdly  a  portion  of  the  vast  extent  known  as 
"  Turan." 

Mgr,  de  Harlez  further  points  out  that  the  Nasu 
closely  corresponds  to  those  evil  spirits  of  Shumir 
and  Accad  from  whose  persecution  men  are  never 
safe, — who  fall  as  rain  from  the  sky, — who  spring  from 
the  earth, — who  creep  in  at  the  door  like  serpents, — 
who  steal  the  child  from  the  father's  knee, — who 
withhold  from  the  wife  the  blessing  of  children.""' 
Besides,  the  Nasu-Druj  is  not  alone  ;  here,  as  in 
Turanian  Chaldea,  their  name  is  Legion.  Chapter 
XI.  of  the  Vendidad,  which  is  entirely  composed  of 
incantations  and  exorcisms  to  repel  the  evil  influ- 
ence from  the  house,  the  fire,  the  earth,  the  tree,  the 
cow,  the  faithful  man  and  woman,  etc.,  gives  a  long 
list  of  fiends  whose  names  have  not  yet  been  identi- 
fied or  explained.  Here,  as  there,  too,  the  North 
is  the  fateful  region  ;  in  the  north  lies  Mount  Are- 
zura,  the  meeting-place  of  the  daevas,  with  its  gate 
of  hell  opening  from  the  west. 

27.  The  excessive  reverence  shown  to  Fire  and 
expressed  in  observances  so  strict  and  ritualistic  as 
to  have  gained  for  the  Zoroastrians  the  name  of 
"  Fire-worshippers  "  from  superficial  observers,  also 
appears  to  have  been  a  later  development.  The 
word  Athravan  ("  Keeper  of  the  Fire  "),  which 
designates  the  priest  throughout  the  later  Avesta, 
does  not  occur  once  in  the  Gathas.  The  priest  is 
there  designated  by  a  descriptive  periphrase — such 
as  "  Master  of  Wisdom,"  "  Messenger  of  the  Law." 
Now  the  worship  of  the  elements  is  a  well-known 
*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  155,  156. 


l6.     RUIN    OF    ATESH-GAH  AT    FIrOZABAD. 


152  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

Turanian  feature,  and  as  regards  specially  that  of 
Fire,  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  Eranians  already 
found  it  in  full  force  in  the  region  bordering  on  the 
Caspian  Sea  from  the  west.  That  maze  of  moun- 
tains and  valleys,  uniting  the  foot  of  the  Caucasian 
range  and  the  head  of  the  Zagros,  abounds  in  under- 
ground springs  and  reservoirs  of  naphtha — a  perfectly 
inexhaustible  wealth  of  fuel,  which  a  very  little  la- 
bor could  bring  to  the  surface  by  means  of  pipes,  and 
utilize  for  entertaining  quenchless  fires.  Thus  the 
institution  of  sacred  fires  is  absolutely  suggested 
by  the  nature  of  the  country,  and  is  accordingly 
intimately  associated  with  that  country  even  in  its 
name — Atropatene  =  Aderbeidjan — to  our  own  day. 
(See  p.  144.)  Some  few  so-called  "  Gebers  "  or  "  Fire- 
worshippers  "  still  linger  among  the  mountains  of  Ad- 
erbeidjan and  Upper  Kurdistan,  attracted  by  the  flame 
which  still  glimmers  on  the  top  of  some  of  the  ancient 
Fire-towers,  the  gigantic  Atesh-gahs  or  Fire-altars  con- 
structed in  the  times  of  their  fathers'  glory; — unique 
and  most  impressive  constructions,  now  mostly  in 
ruins.  The  sacred  flame,  kindled  in  the  pure  moun- 
tain air,  high  above  all  defiling  contact,  drew  its 
nourishment  by  a  pipe  that  passed  straight  up 
through  the  centre  of  the  building,  directly  from  the 
invisible  store  below.  Truly,  few  forms  of  worship 
appeal  more  to  our  imagination  and  our  sense  of 
reverent  awe  than  the  homage  paid  to  this  purest  of 
symbols  on  the  stainless  mountain  tops,  by  white- 
robed  Athravans,  raising  their  voice  in  song  amid 
the  silence  of  a  wild  and  undesecrated  nature. 

28.  More  traces  of  Turanian  influence  mifjht  eas- 


17.     RESTORATION    OF    THE    PRECEDING. 


154  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

ily  be  adduced,  but  they  are  too  indistinct  and  sub- 
tle to  allow  of  discussion  in  a  merely  popular  work. 
There  is  one,  however,  too  peculiar  and  striking  to 
be  passed  over;  it  is  the  strange  transformation  un- 
dergone by  the  Fravashis,  or  glorified  spirits  of  the 
departed,  who,  as  we  can  establish  clearly,  and  with- 
out straining  a  point,  originally  answer  to  the  Pitris 
of  the  Veda  (see  pp.  83,  ff.).  That  of  the  host  of  "  the 
good,  strong,  beneficent  Fravashis  of  the  faithful," 
those  of  the  first  and  sainted  champions  of  the  true 
faith  should  be  honored  with  a  special  reverence,  is 
right  and  natural,  and  there  is  nothing  startling  in 
the  long  litany  (over  twenty  pages)  which  recalls 
them  all  by  name,  repeating  the  same  form  of  invo- 
cation, beginning  with  "  the  Fravashi  of  the  holy  Zara- 
thushtra,  who  first  thought  what  is  good,  who  first 
spoke  what  is  good,  who  first  did  what  is  good. 
.  .  .  who  first  knew  and  first  taught," — and  end- 
ing with  this  beautiful  proclamation  of  universal 
brotherhood  :  "  We  worship  the  Fravashis  of  the  holy 
men  in  the  Aryan  countries,  ...  of  the  holy 
women  in  the  Aryan  countries,  ...  of  the 
holy  men,  of  the  holy  women  in  the  Turanian  coun- 
tries, ...  of  the  holy  men,  the  holy  women  in 
all  countries."  From  these  unsubstantial  spirits  to 
the  host  of  heavenly  warriors,  "  with  helms  of  brass, 
with  weapons  of  brass,  with  armor  of  brass,  who 
struggle  in  the  fights  for  victory  in  garments  of  light, 
arraying  the  battles  and  bringing  them  forwards,  to 
kill  thousands  of  daevas,"  who  help  their  own  peo- 
ple in  their  wars,  who  fight  for  the  waters  to  be  dis- 
tributed   to    their  clans,  the    transition,  by  a    bold 


THE  VENDIDAD. —  THE  LESSER  A  VESTA.    I  55 

touch  of  anthromorphism,  is  easy,  the  proceeding 
famiHar  and  thoroughly  Aryan.  But  when,  in  the 
same  hymn  (Yesht  XIII.),  we  find  a  long  string  of 
invocations  to  the  Fravashis  of  the  living,  of  those 
to  be  born,  nay,  of  animals  and  inanimate  objects, 
when,  indeed,  Ahura-Mazda  and  the  Amesha-Spentas 
are  said  to  have  their  own  respective  Fravashis,  we 
are  no  longer  in  an  Aryan  world.  Here  are  some  of 
the  passages  : 

"  of  all  those  ancient  Fravashis,  we  worship  the  Fravashi  of 
Ahura-Mazda,  who  is  the  greatest,  the  best,  the  fairest,  etc.  .  .  . 
We  worship  the  good,  strong,  beneficent  Fravashis  of  the  Amesha- 
Spentas,  the  bright  ones,  etc.  .  .  .  We  worship  the  souls  ;  those 
of  the  tame  animals  ;  those  of  the  wild  animals  ;  those  of  the  animals 
that  live  in  the  waters  ;  those  of  the  animals  that  live  under  the 
ground  ;  those  of  the  flying  ones  ;  those  of  the  running  ones  :  those 
of  the  grazing  ones  ;  we  worship  their  Fravashis.*  .  .  .  We  wor- 
ship the  good,  strong,  beneficent,  Fravashis  ...  of  the  most 
rejoicing  Fire,  ...  of  the  holy,  strong  Sraosha,  who  is  the  in- 
carnate Word,  a  mighty-speared  and  lordly  god,  .  .  .  that  of 
Mithra,  the  lord  of  wide  pastures  ;  that  of  the  Holy  Word  (Manthra- 
Spenta)  ;  that  of  the  sky  ;  that  of  the  waters  ;  that  of  the  earth  ;  that 
of  the  plants  ;  that  of  the  Bull  ;  .  .  .  We  sacrifice  unto  the 
Fravashis  of  those  that  have  been  ;  of  those  that  will  be  ;  all  the 
Fravashis  of  all  nations,  and  most  friendly  to  those  of  the  friendly 
nations." 

"  The  most  powerful  amongst  the  Fravashis  of  the  faithful,  O 
Spitama  !  are  those  of  the  men  of  the  primitive  law,  or  those  of  the 
Saviours  not  yet  born,  who  are  to  restore  the  world. f  Of  the  others, 
the  Fravashis  of  the  living  are  more  powerful  than  those  of  the 
dead." 

We  see  here  in  the  Avesta  the  beginning  of  a  de- 

*  The  soul  is  to  be  imagined  as  distinct  from  the  Fravashi. 

f  In  the  fulness  of  time  three  prophets,  or  "  Saviours,"  miracu- 
lously born  from  Zarathushtra  are  to  appear  on  earth,  to  prepare  the 
world  for  final  regeneration. 


156  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND    PERSIA. 

velopmcnt  which  is  worked  out  far  more  thoroughly 
in  the  Bundehesh  and  other  Pehlevi  books  of  the 
Sassanian  period,  and  which  would  be  inexplicable 
but  for  the  af^nity  which  the  student  of  Chaldean 
antiquity  cannot  but  instantly  detect  between  these 
spiritual  doubles  and  those  which  the  primitive  faith 
of  the  Shumiro-Accads  ascribed  to  every  individ- 
ual, whether  human  or  divine,  and  to  every  material 
object  or  phenomenon.*  The  influence  is  unmistak- 
able, though  there  is  far  from  Turanian  goblin-worship 
to  the  nobler  form  which  the  same  conception  as- 
sumed when  received  and  reproduced  by  the  more 
refined  Aryan  intellect.  In  their  last  development 
the  transformed  Fravashis  came  to  be,  as  one  might 
say,  the  pre-existing  prototypes  created  in  heaven 
of  all  that  is  ever  to  be  born  or  have  visible  shape  on 
earth, — the  abstract  form,  to  be  at  some  time  incar- 
nated in  a  body.  The  most  intelligible  and  exhaust- 
ive definition  of  this  class  of  beings  is  that  given 
by  Dr.  E.  W.  West,  perhaps  the  greatest  living  Peh- 
levi scholar  :  "  .  .  .A  preparatory  creation  of  em- 
bryonic and  immaterial  existences,  the  prototypes — 
fravashis — spiritual  counterparts  or  guardian  angels 
of  the  spiritual  and  material  creatures  afterwards 
produced."  f 

29.  We  lastly  come  to  the  afifinities,  between 
Avcstan  and  Hebrew  conceptions,  which  are  many 
and  striking.     The    almost    identity  of    the  Angra- 

*  See,  in  "Story  of  Chaldea,"  the  explanation  of  the  expression 
"  the  son  of  his  god,"  pp.  176  ff.,  and  Turanian  spirit-worship  in  the 
same  chapter,  pp.  151  ff. 

f  In  a  note  to  Chapter  I.  of  the  Bundehesh. 


THE   VENDIDAD. —  THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.    I  57 

Mainyu  of  Mazdeism  with  the  BibHcal  Satan,  as 
well  as  the  close  approach  of  Ahura-Mazda  in  sub- 
limity and  supremacy  to  Jehovah  himself,  (not 
Yahveh,  the  tribal  god  of  the  early  Hebrews,  but 
Yahveh,  the  One  God  and  Lord  of  the  great 
prophets),  has  long  been  acknowledged  by  the 
greatest  scholars;  some  of  whom*  are  much  inclined 
to  attribute  the  similarity  to  direct  Hebrew  influ- 
ences. All  that  can  be  said  here  on  this  very  far- 
reaching  subject  is  that  we  have  historical  evidence 
of  the  possibility  of  contact  and  intercourse  between 
the  Eranian  and  Semitic  minds  at  least  as  early  as 
the  eighth  century  B.C.  ,  since  we  know  that  Sargon 
of  Assyria,  when  he  carried  Israel  away  into  captiv- 
ity after  the  fall  of  Samaria,  sent  a  number  of  Jews 
to  "  the  cities  of  the  Medes."  f  Also,  the  scene  of 
the  dramatic  story  told  in  the  Book  of  Tobit,  as  oc- 
curring in  the  reign  of  King  Sennacherib,  is  placed 
in  "  Ecbatane,  a  city  of  Media,"  and  in  "  Rages  of 
Media  "  (Rhagae),  where  w^e  are  shown  Jewish  fami- 
lies residing  permanently,  keeping  their  law,  and 
transacting  the  varied  business  of  life.  The  fiend 
Asmodeus,  with  whom  young  Tobias  wrestled  for 
his  wife,  is  no  other  than  the  Eranian  Aeshma-Da- 
eva,  very  slightly  disguised  by  foreign  pronunciation. 
So  if  the  Jews  borrowed  from  the  Medes,  the  reverse 
is  by  no  means  improbable.  Only  we  must  remem- 
ber that  Ahura-Mazda  stands  forth  in  all  his  great- 

*  Foremost  among  these,  indeed  too  absolutely  and  sweepingly — 
Friedrich  Spiegel  ;  also,  within  much  more  reasonable  bounds — Mgr. 
de  Harlez. 

f  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  248,  249. 


158  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

ness,  as  the  One  God,  Omniscient  Lord,  the  Creator, 
in  the  primeval  Zoroastrian  revelation,  as  embodied 
in  the  Gathas,  consequently  anticipates  by  several 
hundred  years  the  possibility  of  Hebrew  contact 
and  influences.  To  these,  therefore,  Mazdeism  may 
have  owed  some  later  developments,  some  finishing 
touches,  but  in  no  case  its  original  and  fundamental 
conceptions. 

30.  It  may  have  been  noticed  that  in  this  neces- 
sarily condensed,  but  not  therefore  incomplete, 
sketch  of  the  Avestan  legislation  (as  much  of  it  as 
has  reached  us)  no  mention  has  been  made  of  any 
penal  regulations,  or  code  of  punishments.  The  fact 
is  that,  although  the  Vendidad  does  contain  such  a 
code,  it  is  the  most  incomprehensible  part  of  the 
whole  book  ;  its  provisions,  z/they  have  been  rightly 
interpreted,  being  so  wildly  extravagant  as  almost  to 
warrant  the  severest  strictures  of  Duperron's  ene- 
mies. The  penalty  always  consists  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  stripes,  applied  first  with  one  instrument  and, 
in  equal  number,  with  another.  The  names  of  these 
instruments — the  Aspahe-ashtra  and  the  Sraoslw- 
Charana^ — become  very  familiar  after  perusing  cer- 
tain portions  of  the  Vendidad,  where  they  occur  at 
every  other  line  ;  but  no  one  has  ever  yet  found  out 
what  they  really  were,  or  looked  like.  Furthermore, 
scholars  are  not  yet  agreed  as  to  whether  the  stripes 
— so  many  with  the  one,  as  many  with  the  other 
— were  to  be  received  by  the  culprit,  or  given  by 
him,  i.  e.,  given  to  unclean  animals  or  insects — 
khrafstras — in  which  case  "  so  many  blows  or  stripes '' 

*  Ch  pronounced  as  in  "  Church." 


THE  VENDIDAD. —  THE  LESSER  A  VESTA.    I  59 

would  mean  "  so  many  khrafstras  killed,"  the  act  of 
penance  being  turned  to  the  profit  of  the  "  good 
creation  "  by  so  much  damage  done  to  the  "  bad 
creation."  De  Harlez,  Spiegel,  Justi,  hold  this  latter 
view,  while  most  other  Avestan  scholars — Anquetil, 
Haug,  Darmesteter,  and  several  more — advocate  the 
other.  As  long  as  we  have  to  do  with  a  reasonable 
gradation  of  punishment,  such  as  from  five  stripes  to 
ten,  fifteen,  thirty,  fifty,  seventy,  ninety,  up  to  two 
hundred,  there  do  not  seem  to  be  any  objections  on 
the  plea  of  humanity  or  possibility  ;  but  when  it 
comes  to  a  thousand  stripes,  and  in  one  case  ten 
thousand  (for  the  killing  of  a  particularly  sacred  ani- 
mal, called  "  water-dog,"  but  not  yet  perfectly  iden- 
tified), feeling  and  reason  equally  revolt  and  prompt 
us  to  look  for  some  other  interpretation.  One  is 
that  corporal  punishment,  though  extensively  used 
even  now  among  the  Parsis,  as  throughout  the  East, 
was  very  early  commuted  to  the  payment  of  fines, 
according  to  a  corresponding,  strictly  graded  scale. 
"  The  Pehlevi  Commentary,"  we  are  told,*  "  expressly 
distinguishes  three  sorts  of  atonement  :  the  atone- 
ment by  money,  the  atonement  by  the  S7'aoshS- 
CJiarana,  and  the  atonement  by  cleansing."  And 
further — "  In  later  Parsism,  every  sin  (and  every 
good  deed)  has  its  value  in  money  fixed,  and  may 
thus  be  weighed  in  the  scales  of  Rashnu  "  (the 
Angel  of  Justice).  It  has  been  calculated  that  a  stripe 
is  equal  to  about  fifty  cents  of  our  money. 

31.  Altogether  this  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 
puzzling  and  unedifying  portions  of  the  Avesta,  es- 

*  Darmesteter,  "  Introduction  to  the  Zend-Avesta,"  p.  xcix. 


l6o  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

pecially  when  we  consider  wliat  seems  to  our  modern 
and  uninitiated  eyes  the  preposterous  disproportion 
between  offence  and  punishment.  We  can  under- 
stand the  infliction  of  from  five  all  the  way  to  two 
hundred  stripes  for  assault  and  battery,  manslaughter, 
and  premeditated  homicide,  according  to  the  injury 
suffered,  from  "drawing  blood"  to  "a  broken  bone," 
or  "  giving  up  the  ghost,"  and  think  the  punishment 
just,  and  even  moderate  ;  we  can  understand  a  maxi- 
mum of  two  hundred  stripes  for  any  act  that  defiles 
sacred  things,  such  as  tilling  land  wherein  a  corpse 
has  been  buried  within  the  year,  performing  a  sacri- 
fice in  a  house  where  a  man  has  just  died,  throwing 
on  the  ground  a  bone  of  a  corpse,  etc.,  because  such 
pollution  was  believed  to  affect  the  whole  com- 
munity, and  to  give  power  to  the  Evil  Ones;  but 
when  we  find  the  same  punishment — two  hundred 
stripes — awarded  for  giving  bad  food  to  a  shepherd's 
dog,  we  "  feel  uncomfortable,"  as  Darmesteter  says; 
and  when  it  comes  to  five  hundred  stripes  for  killing 
a  puppy-dog,  six  hundred  for  killing  a  stray  dog, 
seven  hundred  for  a  house-dog,  eight  hundred  for  a 
shepherd's  dog,  one  thousand  for  a  hedge-hog,  and  ten 
thousand  for  the  mysterious  "water-dog"  (otter?), 
we  give  it  up,  and  are  fain  to  confess  our  incapability 
of  identifying  ourselves  with  all  the  workings  of  our 
far-away  ancestors'  minds."" 

*  A  young  Avestan  scholar,  Mr.  A.  V.  Williams-Jackson  (of  Co- 
lumbia College,  New  York),  thus  sums  up  the  proper  attitude  towards 
all  such  special  questions  :  "  The  query  as  to  the  10,000  stripes  I  do 
not  feel  at  all  certain  in  answering.  I  had  always  held  the  view  that 
the  practice  denoted  in  the  Sraosho-Charana  was  much  the  same  as 
has  survived  in  the  horrors  of  the  modern  Persian  bastinado,  and  that 


THE  VENDIDAD. —  THE  LESSER   A  VESTA.    l6l 

32.  When,  in  a  preceding  chapter  (Ch.  IV.),  we 
attempted  to  trace  out  the  mythical  elements  con- 
tained in  the  Avesta  and  to  connect  them  with  the 
nature-myths  of  a  primeval  Aryan  religion,  the  illus- 
trations were  drawn  almost  entirely  from  the  Yeshts, 
or  hymns,  which,  with  a  few  fragmentary  collections, 
form  the  so-called  KhordeH-Avesta  ("Lesser 
Avesta").  It  is  therefore  unnecessary  here  to  dwell 
on  this  portion  of  the  book  further  than  to  point 
out  how  that,  being  undoubtedly  a  late  growth,  yet 
unmistakably  polytheistic  in  tendency,  it  bears  wit- 
ness to  that  heathen  revival,  that  reaction  against 
the  pure  spiritualism  of  the  Gathic  revelation  of 
which  wc  sau^  the  first  indications  in  the  "  Yasna  of 
Seven  Chapters"  (see  pp.  108,  ff.),  and  more  decided 
signs  in  the  Vendidad.  No  matter  that  the  former 
gods  are  now  called  Yazatas,  spirits,  and  are  said  to 
be  not  only  subject  to  Ahura-Mazda,  but  created  by 
him,*  the  tendency  is  there  and  the  saving  clause  is 

the  extraordinary  figures  10,000.  etc.,  were  little  more  than  Oriental 
playing  with  numbers  .  .  .  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  regular 
series,  5,  30,  50,  90,  100,  200  might  be  literally  taken.  .  .  .  The 
idea  is  nearly  what  is  expressed  by  Darmesteter  in  the  '  Introduc- 
tion,' .  .  .  particularly  what  he  says  about  the  money  payments. 
Yet  in  spite  of  that,  I  now  see  objections  .  .  .  hence  uncertainty. 
It  is  hard  at  best,  in  the  present  condition  of  Avesta  subjects,  to 
have  decided  views.  It  is  more  lilieral  to  avoid  as  yet  being  dog- 
matic in  this  field.  .  .  .  Where  progress  is  being  made  each 
day,  we  may  think  thus  and  thus  nozv,  but  in  a  month  may  learn  the 
errors  of  our  views,  and  must  abandon  them.  .  .  .  This  is  the 
right  ground  to  hold,  is  n't  it  ?  " — (From  a  private  letter). 

*  "  We  sacrifice   to  Verethraghna,  made   by  Ahura. 
"We    sacrifice  to  the   awful   Hvareno,   made  by   Mazda.    . 
"  We  «arrifice  unto  the  powerful   Druaspa  (same  as  Geush-Urvan, 


1 62  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

introduced    merely   as    a   salve   to    conscience.      As 
Mgr.  de  Harlez  says  in  his  masterly  summing  up  -  : 

"  Zoroastrism  at  first  attempted  a  far  more  radical  reform,  of 
which  the  Gathas  give  us  the  measure  ;  but  the  reaction  of  the  na- 
tional spirit  restored  the  worship  of  the  ancient  genii  to  its  former 
splendor,  and  revived  early  traditions.  Later  Mazdeism  found 
nothing  better  than  to  force  the  genii  into  the  heavenly  hierarchy, 
proclaiming  them  to  be  creatures  of  Mazda,  and  the  Eranian  heroes 
into  the  dualistic  order  of  things,  re-handling  the  stories  about  them 
as  needful. 

"  Three  grades  are  distinguishable  in  this  evolution.  Eranian  re- 
ligion passed  from  polytheism  to  dualism  .  .  .  then  rose  towards 
monotheism,  to  fall  back  again  into  spirit-worship.  Zoroastrism 
proper  belongs  to  the  first  or  second  phase — rather  to  the  second,  the 
movement  towards  monotheism." 

33.  It  is  to  be  expected  that  every  conception, 
even  the  most  inherent  and  deeply  rooted  in  the 
Eranian  spiritual  consciousness,  must  be  affected  by 
these  successive  evolutions  before  it  reaches  its  final 
form.  Such  is  the  case  with  the  belief  in  a  future  life, 
an  existence  after  death,  which  is  to  bring  the  re- 
ward or  punishment  earned  by  every  soul  during  its 
earthly  career.  This  belief  is  as  old  as  any  with 
which  we  can  credit  the  Eranian  mind.  It  is  continu- 
ally expressed  in  the  Gathas,  but,  quite  in  accordance 
with  the  spiritual  character  of  that  stage  of  religious 
thought,  it  does  not  assume  there  any  material 
features,  even  though  the  Chinvat  Bridge  is  re- 
see  p.  100),  made  by  Mazda  and  holy,  who  keeps  the  flocks  in 
health.  .  .  ."  "  When  I  created  Mithra,  the  lord  of  wide  pas- 
tures .  .  ."  says  Ahura.  And  again  :  "I  have  created  that 
star  Tishtrya. 

*  See  De   Harlez,  "  Les  Origines  du  Zoroastrisme,"  pp.  317-319. 


THE   VENDIDAD. —  THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.     1 63 

peatedly  mentioned  * ;  the  nature  of  the  bliss  or 
suffering  which  awaits  the  departed  spirit  is  left 
vaguely  undefined,  and  sometimes  almost  seems  to 
be  conceived  rather  as  a  state  of  mind  than  an 
actual  existence  with  sensations  and  feelings,  f  Not 
so  in  the  Vendidad.  The  ancient  drearrilike  specu- 
lation has  already  materialized  into  the  very  beauti- 
ful and  poetical  vision  which  later  Mazdeism  presents 
to  the  faithful,  with  clear  and  well-established  de- 
tails, as  the  revealed  picture  of  the  trial  and  judg- 
ment that  every  soul  is  to  encounter.  Nor  are 
heathen  features  wanting:  the  mythical  dogs  that 
guard  the  bridge  and  escort  and  defend  the 
righteous  spirit,  the  celestial  mountain,  the  god 
Mithra.  Every  detail  of  the  thoroughly  worked  out 
vision  is  real  and  thrilling  in  the  extreme.  It  is 
partly  given  in  the  Vendidad  (Ch.  XIX.)  in  the 
consecrated  form  of  a  direct  revelation  to  the 
prophet,  and  what  is  wanting  there  is  completed  in 

*  "  And  when  they  approach  there  where  the  Chin  vat  Bridge  is, 
in  the  Lie's  abode  (Hell),  forever  shall  their  habitation  be." 
(Yasna,  XLVI.,  11.) — "  The  righteous  man's  conscience  will  truly 
crush  the  wicked  man's,  while  his  soul  rages  fiercely  on  the  open 
Chinvat  Bridge.     .     .     ."     (Yasna,  LI.,  13.) 

f  "  The  truth  is  that  the  mental  heaven  and  hell  with  which  we 
are  now  familiar  as  the  only  future  states  recognized  by  intelligent 
people,  and  thoughts,  which,  in  spite  of  their  familiarity,  can  never 
lose  their  importance,  are  not  only  used  and  expressed  in  the  Gathas, 
but  expressed  there,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  for  the  first  time. 
While  mankind  were  delivered  up  to  the  childish  terrors  of  a  future 
replete  with  horrors  visited  upon  them  from  without,  the  early 
Eranian  sage  announced  the  eternal  truth  that  the  rewards  of 
Heaven  and  the  punishments  of  Hell  can  only  be  from  within." 
(L.  H.  Mills  ;  Introduction  to  his  translation  of  the  Gathas.") 


164  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PERSIA. 

one  of  the  last  Yeshts  (XXII.),  so  that,  by  combining 
the  two,  we  obtain  a  beautifully  complete  narrative, 
if  such  a  word  may  be  applied  to  a  vision  of  the 
future. 

"  Zarathushtra  asked  Ahura-Mazda  :  '  O  thou  all-knowing  Ahura- 
Mazda  !  Should  I  urge  upon  the  godly  man  and  upon  the  godly 
woman,  should  I  urge  upon  the  wicked  daeva-worshipper  who 
lives  in  sin,  that  they  have  once  to  leave  behind  them  the  earth  made 
by  Ahura,  that  they  have  to  leave  the  waters  that  run,  the  corn  that 
grows,  and  all  the  rest  of  their  wealth  ? '  Ahura-Mazda  answered  : 
'  Thou  shouldst,  O  holy  Zarathushtra.' 

"  '  O  Maker  of  the  material  world,  thou  Holy  One  !  where  are  the 
rewards  given  .  .  .  that,  in  their  life  in  the  material  world,  they 
have  won  for  their  souls  ?  ' 

"  Ahura  Mazda  answered  :  '  When  the  man  is  dead,  when  his 
time  is  over,  then  the  hellish,  evil-doing  daevas  assail  him,  and  when 
the  third  night  is  gone,  when  the  dawn  appears  and  brightens  up, 
and  makes  Mithra,  the  god  with  beautiful  weapons,  reach  the  all 
happy  mountains,  and  the  sun  is  rising — then  the  fiend  named 
Vezaresha  carries  off  in  bonds  the  souls  of  the  wicked  daeva- 
worshippers  who  live  in  sin.*  The  soul  enters  the  way  made  by 
Time  and  open  both  to  the  wicked  and  the  righteous.'  "  (Vendidad, 
XIX.) 

During  three  nights  the  soul  is  said  (Yesht  XXII.) 
to  have  its  seat  near  the  head  of  the  body  it  has  just 
quitted.  If  the  deceased  was  a  righteous  man,  "  his 
soul  in  those  nights  tastes  as  much  of  pleasure  as  the 
whole  of  the  living  world  can  taste."  During  these 
three  nights  the  relatives  offer  prayers  and  sacri- 
fices to  Sraosha,  Rashnu,  and  Vayu. 

*  Commentary  :  "  Every  one  has  a  noose  cast  around  his  neck  : 
when  a  man  dies,  if  he  has  been  a  righteous  man,  the  noose  falls 
from  his  neck  ;  if  a  wicked,  they  drag  him  with  that  noose  down  into 
hell."  The  good  and  evil  spirits  struggle  on  the  bridge  for  the  pos-- 
session  of  the  soul. 


THE   VEND/DAD. —  THE   LESSER  A  VESTA.     1 65 

At  the  end  of  the  third  night,  when  the  dawn 
appears,  it  seems  to  the  soul  of  the  faithful  one  as 
if  it  were  brought  amidst  plants  and  scents ;  it 
seems  as  if  a  wind  were  blowing  from  the  region  of 
the  south,*  a  sweet-scented  wind,  sweeter  scented 
than  any  other  wind  in  the  world.  And  it  seems  to 
the  soul  of  the  faithful  one  as  though  he  were  in- 
haling that  wind  with  his  nostrils,  and  he  thinks: 
"  Whence  does  that  wind  blow,  the  sweetest-scented 
wind  I  ever  inhaled?"     (Yesht   XXII.) 

"  Then  (at  the  head  of  the  Chinvat  Bridge,  the  holy  bridge  made 
by  Mazda)  comes  the  vvell-shapen,  strong,  and  tall-formed  maid  .  .  ." 
(Vend.,  XIX.)  "  fair,  white-armed,  beautiful  of  body,  of  the  size  of  a 
maid  in  her  fifteenth  year,  as  fair  as  the  fairest  things  in  the 
world  .  .  ."  (Yesht  XXII.)  "  with  the  dogs  at  her  sides.  .  .  ." 
(Vend.,  XIX.)  "And  the  soul  of  the  faithful  one  addresses  her, 
asking  :  '  What  maid  art  thou,  who  art  the  fairest  maid  I  have  ever 
seen  ? '  And  she  answers  him  :  '  O  thou  youth  of  good  thought, 
good  words,  and  good  deeds,  of  good  religion,  I  am  thy  own  con- 
science.    .     .     ."     (Yesht  XXII.) 

"  She  makes  the  soul  of  the  righteous  one  go  up  above  the  Hara- 
Berezaiti  ;  above  the  Chinvat  Bridge  she  places  it  in  the  presence  of 
the  heavenly  gods  themselves.  Up  rises  Vohu-mano  from  his  golden 
seat  ;  Vohu-mano  exclaims  :  '  How  hast  thou  come  to  us,  thou  holy 
one,  from  that  decaying  world  into  this  undecaying  one  ?  '  Gladly 
pass  the  souls  of  the  righteous  to  the  golden  seat  of  Ahura-Mazda, 
to  the  golden  seat  of  the  Amesha-Spentas,  to  the  Garo-nmana,  the 
abode  of  Ahura-Mazda,  the  abode  of  the  Amesha-Spentas,  the  abode 
of  all  the  other  holy  beings."     (Vend.,  XIX.) 

In  the  Yesht  it  is  one  of  the  faithful  that  had  de- 
parted before  him  who  welcomes  the  righteous  soul, 

*  The  south  is  the  auspicious  direction,  since  Mount  Arezura,  the 
fiends'  mountain,  containing  the  entrance  to  hell,  is  in  the  north. 
The  daevas  always  come  "from  the  region  of  the  north"  and 
retire  thither  when  baffled  and  driven  away. 


1 66  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND   PER  ST  A. 

and  asks  :  "  How  didst  thou  come  from  the  abodes 
full  of  cattle  and  full  of  the  wishes  and  enjoyments 
of  love  ?  From  the  material  world  into  the  world 
of  the  spirit?  From  the  decaying  world  into  the  un- 
decaying  one  ?  "  But  Ahura-Mazda,  interposing  like 
a  courteous  host,  who  will  not  have  a  weary  guest 
disturbed,  says  :  "  Ask  him  not,  who  has  just  gone 
the  dreary  way,  full  of  fear  and  distress,  where  the 
body  and  the  soul  part  from  one  another.  Let  him 
eat  of  the  food  brought  to  him. 

34.  After  enjoying  the  exquisite  poetry  and  imagery 
of  this  description,  it  is  somewhat  of  an  anti-climax, 
though  quite  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  a  sys- 
tem of  perfectly  balanced  dualism,  to  read  the  whole 
over  again,  word  for  word,  only  reversed,  for  the 
wicked  soul.  It  tastes  as  much  suffering  during  the 
three  first  nights  "  as  the  whole  living  world  can 
taste,"  a  foul-scented  wind  meets  it  from  the  region 
of  the  north,  it  is  confronted  by  the  man's  evil  con- 
science in  the  shape  of  a  hideous  hag,  and  so  on  to 
the  end.  We  may  be  very  sure  that  the  beautiful 
creation  is  the  spontaneous  one,  and  that  the  n^y  pen- 
dant has  been  added  in  the  days  of  symmetry  and 
dogmatic  rehandling  of  older  materials. 

35.  We  have  now  arrived  at  the  end  of  what  may 
at  first  sight  appear  in  the  light  of  a  long  digression. 
In  reality  it  is  not  so.  If  Carlyle's  saying  be  true, 
that  "  the  main  fact  about  a  man  is  his  religion,"  it 
is  truest  when  extended  to  nations.  For  nations 
are  more  apt  than  individuals  to  act  up  to  their 
religion.     A  nation  sets   up   its  religion  as  a  stand- 


THE   VENDIDAD.- — THE   LESSER   A  VESTA.     1 67 

ard  embodying  its  loftiest  and  holiest  ideals, 
worked  out  collectively  and  unconsciously  by  its 
members,  and  summed  up  by  some  great  teacher 
and  leader.  By  those  ideals,  by  that  standard,  a  na- 
tion should  be  judged,  its  historical  mission  and  in- 
fluence appraised,  not  by  the  fallings-off  and  short- 
comings of  individuals, — just  as  an  individual's  in- 
trinsic worth  can  be  fairly  estimated  only  by  noting 
the  high-water  mark  his  spiritual  consciousness 
reaches  in  moments  of  insight  and  uplifting,  not  by 
the  shallows  and  lowlands  in  which  existence  drags 
on,  more  from  necessity — or  at  least  feebleness  of  pur- 
pose—than choice,  nor  by  the  leaps  and  convulsive 
starts  occasioned  by  moments  of  passion  and  general 
disturbance.  Nor  should  a  religion  be  judged  by 
the  amount  of  ancient  mythic  dross  clinging  to  it, 
or  its  puerilities  of  superadded  theological  dogma- 
tism and  priestly  discipline,  but  from  the  amount  of 
pure  spiritual  food  it  contains,  also  the  practical  help 
it  gives  towards  righteous  and  happy  living. 

There  are  two  short  Avestan  texts,  which  would 
alone  suffice  to  atone  for  all  the  dross  contained  in 
the  book,  and  establish  a  moral  elevation  that  can 
hardly  be  overrated  for  the  people  who  could  think 
and  feel  thus.  The  first  is  a  verse  towards  the  close 
of  the  great  hymn  to  the  Fravashis,  (Yesht  XIII.) : 
"  We  worship  the  souls  of  the  holy  men  and  women, 
born  at  any  time  or  in  any  place,  whose  consciences 
struggle,  or  will  struggle,  or  have  struggled  for  the 
good."  The  other  text  is  a  prayer  (in  the  Lesser 
Avesta)  which,  for  conciseness,  comprehensiveness, 
and    depth  of   thought,  has  never  been  surpassed : 


1 68 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 


"  Give  us  knowledge,  sagacity  ;  quickness  of  tongue  ; 
holiness  of  soul  ;  a  good  memory  ;  and  then  the 
understanding  that  gocth  on  growing,  and tJiat  under- 
standing, zvhick  comet h  7iot  tJirougJi  learning. "  J udged 
by  all  these  tests  and  standards,  the  Eranian  race  and 
their  religion  hold  a  very  high  standing  indeed  ;  and 
a  thorough  comprehension  of  the  latter  will  be  of  no 
little  help  in  duly  estimating  the  former's  triumphant 
progress  through  the  ancient  world,  which  we  now 
prepare  to  follow,  taking  up  the  thread  of  historical 
narrative  where  we  last  dropped  it — at  the  Fall  of 
Nineveh  and  the  Assyrian  Empire. 


VII. 

THE   LAST   DAYS   OF   JUDAH. 

1.  While  Asshur,  the  dying  giant,  lay  in  the 
throes  of  dissolution,  the  last  ebb  of  animation 
feebly  surging  in  Nineveh,  the  still  throbbing  heart, 
— a  stir,  as  of  returning  life,  passed  over  the  remoter 
provinces  as  the  pressure  of  the  iron  hand  that  held 
them  down  relaxed  in  death.  Of  the  number  was 
Syria.  Once  more  the  procession  of  familiar  names 
passes  before  us  :  Hamath  and  Judah  and  Damas- 
cus, Moab  and  Ammon  and  Edom,  spectres  of 
former  greatness,  roused  into  a  brief  spell  of 
energy  by  a  draught  of  that  "  wine  of  fury,"  which 
the  last  of  Jerusalem's  prophets  was  bid  to  cause  all 
the  nations  to  drink  that  they  might  "  reel  to  and 
fro  and  be  mad,"  one  with  another  (Jeremiah,  XXV.). 
Egypt  too,  with  wounds  scarce  healed,  and  tottering 
still,  but  undaunted  and  aggressive  as  ever,  appears 
once  more,  for  the  last  time,  in  Asia,  on  the  scene 
which  she  had  swept  triumphant  through  so  many 
centuries,  but  was  now  to  abandon,  stricken  and 
crestfallen,  like  an  actor  hissed  off  the  stage. 

2.  Psammetik,  the  deliverer  of  Egypt,*  had  been 

*See  "Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  395. 


I/O  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

succeeded  in  6io  by  his  son,  Necho  II.,  who  im- 
mediately set  to  work  to  carry  out  his  father's  pol- 
icy with  regard  to  Syria.  True,  Psammetik's  long 
years  of  warfare  had  not  brought  him  farther  than 
the  Philistine  cities,  "'  but  he  had  been  interrupted 
by  the  downpouring  of  the  Scythian  and  Cim- 
merian hordes  and  the  necessity  of  retreating  into 
his  own  equally  open  country  to  be  in  readiness  for 
an  invasion.  That  obstacle  was  now  removed  ;  in- 
terference from  Assyria  was  the  last  thing  to  be 
feared,  and  a  warm  welcome  from  the  Syrian 
princes,  judging  from  precedents,  could  be  counted 
upon.  Necho's  plan  probably  was  to  assure  himself 
of  their  allegiance,  and,  his  rear  securely  covered  by 
a  breastwork  of  tribute-paying  friends,  to  proceed  to 
the  Euphrates,  to  the  main  business  of  the  cam- 
paign— the  actual  conquest  of  Assyria  itself.  There 
is  no  reason  why  this  plan  should  not  have  been 
successful,  but  that  others  were  beforehand  with  the 
Egyptian. 

3.  Moreover,  the  princes  may  not  have  been  so 
ready  to  welcome  him.  Now  that  their  colossal 
foe  lay  at  the  last  gasp,  their  dreams  must  have 
been  of  total  emancipation,  not  of  exchanging  one 
foreign  rule  for  another,  even  though  probably  a 
milder  one.  That  such  was  their  feeling,  and  that 
Necho's  progress  was  not  a  peaceful  one,  we  may 
conclude  from  the  fact  that  it  took  him  four  years 
to  get  to  the  Euphrates,  and  from  the  hostile  atti- 
tude of  one  of  them,  Josiah,  King  of  Judah,  recorded 

*See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  418,  423. 


THE  LAST  DAYS   OF  JUDAH.  171 

at  length  in  the  Bible  books,  (Second  Kings,  Second 
Chronicles,  and  Jeremiah). 

4.  Since  the  unexpected  deliverance  from  Sen- 
nacherib's host  in  701,*  Judah  had,  on  the  whole, 
with  the  exception  of  Manasseh's  short-lived  rebel- 
lion,f  and  the  descent  of  the  Scythians,  enjoyed  a 
pretty  quiet  time.  The  now  reigning  king,  Josiah, 
Manasseh's  grandson,  had  come  to  the  throne  in 
638,  a  child  only  eight  years  old.  Early  moulded 
to  the  double  influence  of  the  priests  and  the 
prophets,  he  grew  up  into  a  religious  reformer,  whose 
holy  zeal  restored  the  worship  of  Yahveh  in  more 
than  ancient  purity  and  splendor.  At  the  approach 
of  the  Egyptian  army  he  roused  himself  from  his 
peaceful  and  pious  occupations  to  oppose  the  in- 
vader— an  imprudent  step,  since  his  material  means 
were  unequal  to  it,  and  taken,  it  would  appear, 
against  the  advice  of  his  wisest  councillors.  A  bat- 
tle was  fought  in  the  valley  of  Megiddo. 
Here  Avhere,  a  thousand  years  before,  the  ivfegVddo°; 
great  Dhutmes  III.  had  broken  the  Can-  j^^fahV/ 
aanite  league,:}:  fortune  again  prospered  the  ^09  B°.'a 
Egyptian  arms  ;  Necho's  victory  was  com- 
plete, and  Josiah  himself  fell  on  the  field.  His  son 
and  successor  Jehoahaz,  who  came  to  humble  him- 
self at  the  victor's  feet  in  his  camp  by  the  Orontes, 
found  no  favor  in  the  Pharaoh's  eyes,  but  was  by 
him  deposed  and  carried  captive  into  Egypt,  and 
there  was  great  mourning  for  him  :  "  Weep  ye  not 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  305-311. 
\  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  341,  342. 
X  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  27. 


1/2  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

for  the  dead,  neither  bemoan  him  ;  but  weep  sore  for 
him  that  goeth  away,  for  he  shall  return  no  more, 
nor  see  his  native  country  "  (Jeremiah,  XXII.,  lo). 

5.  Having  appointed  another  of  Josiah's  sons, 
Jehoiakim,  to  reign  in  Judah,  and  taken  much 
gold  and  silver  out  of  the  land,  Necho  followed  in 
Dhutmes'  steps,  and  pursued  his  way  to  the 
Euphrates,  probably  conquering  the  countries  as  he 
went.  In  605  he  reached  the  great  river ;  but  here 
he  was  confronted  by  a  foe  for  whom  he  was  little 
prepared.  Things  had  gone  faster  than  he  had  ex- 
pected, and  differently :  Nineveh  had  fallen  the 
year  before  under  the  united  efforts  of  the  Medes 
under  Kyaxares  and  the  Babylonians  under  Nabopo- 
lassar.*  It  was  therefore  not  the  worn-out  old  lion 
of  Asshur  whom  the  Pharaoh  encountered,  but  the 
strong  and  victorious  lion  of  Babel,  with  threatening 
fangs  and  ominous  growl.  The  Babylonian  army, 
commanded  not  by  Nabopolassar,  who  was  old  and 
infirm,  but  by  his  young  son,  Nebuchadrezzar,  al- 
ready a  renowned  warrior  and  accomplished  general, 

met  the  Egyptian  force  near  Karkhemish, 
Karkhemish  ;  ^"^  Completely  routed  it.  How  Necho 
Nech^oby  returned  to  the  Nile  after  this  disaster, 
zan-605'B.^c! and   how  long  it   took  him,  we  have   no 

hint, — he  is  heard  of  no  more. 

6.  The  victory  of  Karkhemish  would  have  been 
followed  up  more  vigorously  and  immediately,  had 
not  Nebuchadrezzar,  soon  after  he  started  in  pursuit 
of  the  routed  Pharaoh,  been  hastily  summoned  to 
Babylon.     His  father,  Nabopolassar,  had  died  after 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  427,  428. 


THE   LAST  DAYS   OF  JUDAH.  1 73 

a  short  illness,  and  though  a  competent  regent  was 
appointed  by  the  priesthood,  the  presence  of  the 
new  king  was  urgently  required,  and  affairs  at  home 
for  a  time  took  the  precedence  over  foreign  wars. 
It  was  a  new  and  vast  inheritance  which  Nebuchad- 
rezzar was  called  upon  to  receive  and  organize.  For 
at  the  division  of  spoils  which  followed  on  the  de- 
struction of  Nineveh,  the  ancient  empire  of  Asshur 
had  been  pretty  equitably  divided  between  the  two 
principal  champions — the  kings  of  Media  and  Baby- 
lon. The  former,  true  to  the  tendency  of  his  peo- 
ple, which  had  always  been  drawn  on  in  a  westerly 
direction,  retained  the  long-disputed  Zagros  region, 
the  land  that  might  be  called  Assyria  proper^  down 
to  the  alluvial  line,  and  such  power  or  claims  as 
Assyria  possessed  over  the  entire  mountain-land 
of  Nairi,  from  the  Caspian  Sea  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean, from  the  highlands  of  Urartu  to  those  of 
Masios  and  Amanos — or,  in  other  words,  all  that 
lay  east  and  north  of  the  Tigris.  This,  joined  to 
the  Medes'  vast  dominions  in  their  native  Eran, 
made  up  the  new  and,  for  a  short  while,  powerful 
Median  Empire.  The  Babylonian  Empire  was  formed 
of  the  rest  of  Mesopotamia,  with  Chaldea  proper, 
down  to  the  Gulf,  and  all  that  lay  westward  of  the 
Euphrates  to  the  sea.  This  empire,  if  inferior  in  ex- 
tent to  the  other,  was  superior  in  so  far  that  it  was 
more  homogeneous,  including  countries  of  one  race, 
one  culture,  and  almost  one  language — the  Semitic. 
It,  will  be  seen  that  both  these  empires,  in  transfer- 
ring to  themselves  the  possessions  and  claims  of  As- 
syria, burdened  themselves  with  its  wars,  especially 


174  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

the  southern  empire,  which  could  not  possibly 
forego  the  sovereignty  over  the  lands  of  Syria,  as  it 
was  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  Babylon,  both 
from  a  military  and  commercial  point  of  view,  to 
hold  control  over  the  two  great  caravan  routes — the 
one  across  the  desert  to  the  Phoenician  cities  of  the 
sea-shore,  and  the  other,  from  these  cities,  through 
Damascus  and  Karkhemish,  to  Asia  Minor.  As  for 
Elam,  it  seems,  at  this  time,  to  have  been  already 
occupied  in  part  by  an  advanced  detachment  of  a 
new  nation — the  PERSIANS,  Aryan  Eranians  like  the 
Medes — to  whom  they  were  subject.  This  detach- 
ment was  commanded  by  a  branch  of  the  royal  family 
of  Persia  ;  but  not  for  fifty  years  yet  were  they  to 
come  forward  in  any  way.  Through  all  this  time  we 
never  hear  of  Elam.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  it 
was  tributary  to  Media,  and  did  not  court  notoriety. 
7.  We  are  not  told  to  whom  Judah  and  the  other 
Syrian  princes  paid  tribute  during  the  five  years  that 
elapsed  between  the  battle  of  Karkhemish  and  the 
surely  not  unexpected  coming  of  Nebuchadrezzar. 
One  thing  must  have  been  clear  to  them  :  that  the 
question  for  them  could  only  be  between  two  mas- 
ters. Nor  would  that  question  be  left  in  doubt  long, 
as  it  was  not  likely  that  the  king  of  Babylon  would 
suffer  the  rivalry  of  Egypt  one  moment  longer  than 
he  should  be  kept  busy  at  home.  So  that  his  com- 
ing in  600  B.C.  was  more  like  that  of  a  sovereign  re- 
turning to  claim  his  own  than  the  invasion  of  a  con- 
queror. Jehoiakim  of  Judah,  wisely  hastened  to 
tender  his  submission,  and  Nebuchadrezzar  seems  to 
have  spent  the  next  three  years  in  Syria,  in  desultory 


THE   LAST  DAYS   OF  JUDAH.  1 75 

warfare,  graphically  described   by  a  contemporary — 
the  prophet  Habakkuk  : 

"  Lo,  I  raise  up  the  Chaldeans,  that  bitter  and  hasty  nation,  which 
march  through  the  breadth  of  the  earth,  to  possess  dwellings  that  are 
not  theirs.  They  are  terrible  and  dreadful.  .  .  .  Their  horses  are 
swifter  than  leopards,  and  are  more  fierce  than  the  evening  wolves. 
They  fly  as  an  eagle  that  hasteth  to  devour.  They  come, 
all  of  them,  for  violence  ;  their  faces  are  set  eagerly  as  the  east  wind, 
and  they  gather  captives  as  the  sand.  Yea,  he  scoffeth  at  kings,  and 
princes  are  a  derision  unto  him  ;  he  derideth  every  stronghold.  .  .  . 
He  shall  sweep  by  as  a  wind  ;  .  ,  .  even  he  whose  might  is  his 
god.  .  .  .  He  taketh  men  with  the  angle,  he  catcheth  them  in 
his  net,  and  gathereth  them  in  his  drag  ;  therefore  he  rejoices  and  is 
glad.     .     .     ." 

8.  The  leading  spirit  in  Jerusalem  at  this  time  was 
the  prophet  Jeremiah.  Like  Isaiah,  but  with  infi- 
nitely greater  violence,  he  opposed  and  denounced 
all  plans  of  resistance.  He  was  profoundly  con- 
vinced that  Judah's  only  chance  of  safety  lay  in  ab- 
ject submission  and  discouraged,  nay,  cursed  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord,  all  attempts  which  could  only 
bring  destruction  on  the  city,  death  and  ruin  on  the 
people.  His  preaching  was  considered  unpatriotic 
and  was  far  from  popular.  Besides,  the  accusations 
and  invectives  which  he  never  ceased  to  hurl  at  the 
wealthy  and  powerful,  not  sparing  the  king  himself, 
reproving  their  evil  ways,  made  him  bitter  enemies 
in  the  ruling  classes.  So  the  policy  which  he  advo- 
cated, though  it  had  prevailed  under  the  pressure  of 
imminent  danger,  was  soon  abandoned.  The  same 
pitiable  old  farce  with  the  tragic  ending  was  enacted 
once  again  :  forlorn  hopes  centred  on  promises  from 
Egypt,  revolt,  then  disappointment,  as  the  "  broken 


176  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

reed  "  failed  to  give  support, — and  retribution,  swift 
and  terrible. 

9.     Three  years   after   his   submission   Jehoiakim 
appeared  in   arms  and   refused  the  tribute.     Nebu- 
chadrezzar,   who    had    other   matters   on 

First  taking     ,   .       1  ,         •  1  .  t       1    1 

of  Jerusalem  his   hands   just  then,  sent  agamst  Judah 

by Nebuchad- 

rezzar.-         bands  of  Chaldcans,    Moabites,   Ammon- 

597  B.C. 

ites,  and  other  loyal  Syrian  nations,  and 
only  when  he  had  driven  out  the  Pharaoh  so  thor- 
oughly that  he  "  came  not  again  any  more  out  of  his 
lands,"  and  "  when  he  had  taken,  from  the  river  Eu- 
phrates to  the  Brook  of  Egypt,  all  that  pertained  to 
the  king  of  Egypt,"  did  he  join  the  besiegers  before 
Jerusalem.  Jehoiakim  meantime  had  died.  From 
a  passage  in  Jeremiah  it  would  appear  that  there 
had  been  a  revulsion  of  popular  feeling  against  him, 
which  had  vented  itself  in  indignities  perpetrated  on 
his  body.  "  They  shall  not  lament  for  him,"  says 
the  prophet  ;  .  .  .  "he  shall  be  buried  with  the 
burial  of  an  ass,  drawn  and  cast  forth  beyond  the 
gates  of  Jerusalem."  Nor  had  the  prophet  any  but 
words  of  wrath  for  Jehoiakim's  son  and  successor, 
JehOIACHIN  (also  called  Jeconiah)  :  "As  I  live, 
saith  the  Lord,  though  Jeconiah  were  the  signet 
upon  my  right  hand,  yet  would  I  pluck  thee  thence  ; 
and  I  will  give  thee  into  the  hand  of  them  of  whom 
thou  art  afraid.  .  .  ."  The  poor  youth  (only 
eighteen  years  old)  did  not  attempt  further  resist- 
ance, but  went  out  to  Nebuchadrezzar's  camp  and 
gave  himself  up,  with  his  mother,  his  princes,  and 
his  servants.  Jerusalem  w^as  not  destroyed  yet  this 
time,  but  its  population  was  thinned  of   10,000  cap- 


THE  LAST  DAYS   OF  JUDAH.  lyj 

tives,  chosen  among  the  "  mighty  men  of  valor," 
including  a  thousand  craftsmen  and  smiths,  "  all  of 
them  strong  and  apt  for  war."  The  prophet  Eze- 
kiel  was  one  of  this  first  batch  of  captives,  who  were 
taken  to  Babylon  together  with  the  king  and  his 
house,  Nebuchadrezzar  made  an  uncle  of  Jeconiah, 
Zedekiah,  a  son  of  Jehoiakim,  king  in  Judah,  en- 
tered into  a  covenant  with  him,  and  made  him  swear 
the  oath  of  allegiance. 

lO.  Four  years  now  passed  peacefully  enough, 
but  it  was  a  peace  fraught  with  fears,  forebodings, 
and  dissensions.  The  spirit  of  Judah  was  not  broken 
yet,  and  popular  feeling  was  all  for  revolt.  Jere- 
miah's persistent  warnings  scarcely  sufficed  to  hold 
it  in  check,  all  the  more  that  they  were  counteracted 
by  other  prophets,  who  foretold  that  the  yoke  of 
Babylon  should  be  broken  and  the  captives  should 
return  after  a  short  interval,  some  said  within  two 
years.  At  times  Jeremiah  was  actually  forbidden 
to  speak  in  public.  But  the  consciousness  of  his 
mission  was  strong  within  him  and  banished  fear. 
Bitterly  he  complains  of  the  persecutions  to  which 
he  was  subjected,  curses  the  day  that  he  was  born, 
"  the  man  who  brought  tidings  to  his  father,  saying — 
A  man-child  is  born,  making  him  very  glad,"  but 
speak  he  must,  even  though  his  life  be  the  forfeit  : 
"  I  am  become  a  laughing-stock  all  the  day,  every 
man  mocketh  me  ;  .  .  .  the  word  of  the  Lord 
is  made  a  reproach  unto  me,  and  a  derision  all  the 
day.  And  if  I  say — I  will  not  make  mention  of 
him,  nor  speak,  then  there  is  in  mine  heart  as  it  were 
a  burning  fire  shut  up  in  my  bones,  and  I  am  weary 


178  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

with  forbearing,  and  I  cannot  contain.  .  .  ."  When, 
in  the  fourth  year  of  Zedekiah's  reign,  messengers 
came  from  the  kings  of  Moab,  Ammon,  and  Edom, 
and  from  those  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  to  propose  a 
renewal  of  the  usual  combination,  the  prophet  op. 
posed  their  errand  with  even  more  than  his  usual 
vigor  and  cxplicitness.  He  "  gave  them  a  charge 
unto  their  masters,"  saying  : 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  the  God  of  Israel  :  .  .  .  I  have 
given  all  these  lands  into  the  hands  of  Nebuchadrezzar  the  king  ol 
Babylon,  my  servant.  .  .  .  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  the  na- 
tion and  the  kingdom  which  will  not  serve  the  same  Nebuchadrez- 
zar, that  will  not  put  their  neck  under  the  yoke  of  the  king  of 
Babylon,  that  nation  will  I  punish  with  the  sword  and  with  the 
famine  and  with  the  pestilence.  .  .  .  And  hearken  not  unto  the 
words  of  the  prophets  that  speak  unto  you,  saying — Ye  shall  not 
serve  the  king  of  Babylon,  for  they  prophesy  a  lie  unto  you.  I  have 
not  sent  them.  .  .  .  Bring  your  necks  unto  the  yoke  of  the  king 
of  Babylon,  and  serve  him  and  his  people,  and  live.     .     .     ." 

And  when,  about  this  very  time,  Zedekiah  went 
to  Babylon,  it  was  probably  by  the  advice  of  the 
cautious  prophet,  and  to  clear  himself  from  any  sus- 
picion of  complicity  in  a  conspiracy  which  could  not 
be  unknown  to  the  king. 

II.  Not  content  with  preaching  in  Jerusalem, 
Jeremiah  sent  written  words  to  the  captives  in  Baby- 
lon, exhorting  them  to  bear  their  lot  in  patience  and 
to  make  the  best  of  it  ;  to  "  build  houses  and  dwell 
in  them,"  to  plant  gardens  and  eat  the  fruit  of  them, 
to  marry  and  multiply  and  "  not  be  diminished." 
"  And,"  he  added,  "  seek  the  peace  of  the  city  and 
pray  unto  the  Lord  for  it,  for  in  the  peace  thereof 
shall  ye  have  peace."     And  yet  was  the  prophet's 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  JUDAH.  1 79 

soul  filled  with  wrath  against  the  conquerors,  and  he 
took  comfort  in  the  prevision  that  their  turn  would 
come,  expatiating  on  the  future  ruin  of  Chaldea  with 
vindictive  delight,  as  the  fit  retribution  for  the  woes 
brought  on  Judah.  The  last  chapters  of  Jeremiah, 
written  after  the  final  catastrophe  had  been  enacted, 
breathe  this  spirit  of  revengeful  exultation  through- 
out, and  are  full  of  dire  predictions,  in  the  usual 
lofty  strain  of  prophetic  poetry, — passages  the  sub- 
stance of  which  can  be  summed  up  in  the  following 
extract : 

"  Israel  is  a  scattered  sheep  ;  the  lions  have  driven  him  away  ; 
first  the  king  of  Assyria  hath  devoured  him  ;  and  last  this  Nebuchad- 
rezzar king  of  Babylon  hath  broken  his  bones.  .  .  .  Behold,  I 
will  punish  the  king  of  Babylon  and  his  land  as  I  have  punished  the 
king  of  Assyria.     .    .     ." 

And  even  while  preaching  resignation  and  cheer- 
ful endurance  under  the  hardships  of  captivity,  even 
while  prevailing  on  the  unwilling  king  to  go  to 
Babylon  on  his  humiliating  errand,  Jeremiah  man- 
aged to  convey  to  his  captive  brethren  the  assurances 
of  coming  retribution.  He  "  wrote  in  a  book  all  the 
evil  that  should  come  upon  Babylon,"  and  gave  the 
book  to  one  of  the  royal  officers,  bidding  him  read 
out  "  all  these  words  "  when  he  should  have  arrived 
at  Babylon,  then  bind  a  stone  to  it  and  cast  it  into 
the  midst  of  the  Euphrates,  saying,  as  he  did  so  : 
"  Thus  shall  Babylon  sink  and  not  rise  again." 

12.  Thus,  at  his  own  imminent  peril,  the  prophet 
succeeded  in  putting  off  the  evil  hour  for  a  few 
years   more.      But   when,   in   589,   the   grandson    of 


l8o  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

Nccho  II.,*  HOPHRA,  (the  Greeks  call  him  Apries), 
succeeded  to  the  throne  of  Egypt  and  immediately- 
showed  signs  of  meditating  a  Syrian  campaign,  the 
temptation  was  too  strong  for  the  war  party  in  Je- 
rusalem :  Zedekiah,  perhaps  rather  unwillingly,  but 
unable  to  withstand  the  pressure  of  popular  feeling, 
openly  rebelled.  It  was  not  long  before  Nebuchad- 
rezzar was  reported  to  be  on  the  march.  More  than 
ever  Jeremiah  inveighed  against  this  recklessness, 
upbraiding  the  king  moreover  for  his  breach  of  faith, 
and  no  messages  or  enquiries  could  draw  from  him 
any  but  the  one  obnoxious  advice,"  submit."  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord  :  I  myself  will  fight  against  you  with 
an  outstretched  hand  and  a  strong  arm.  Behold, 
I  set  before  you  the  way  of  life  and  the  way  of  death. 
He  that  abideth  in  this  city  shall  die,  by  the  sword, 
and  by  the  famine  and  by  the  pestilence.  But  he 
that  goeth  out  and  falleth  away  to  the  Chaldeans, 
he  shall  live." 

13.  Egypt,  as  usual,  was  not  ready  in  time.  Be- 
fore her  army  had  crossed  the  frontier,  Nebuchad- 
rezzar already  stood  under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem. 
The  Pharaoh,  however,  now  made  up  for  lost  time 
by  rushing  onward  with  such  energy  and  swiftness 
as  to  claim  the  Chaldeans'  immediate  attention,  so 
that  they  raised  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  in  order  to 
hasten  southwards  with  undivided  forces.  Great 
was  the  joy  in  the  doomed  city,  but  Jeremiah  sternly 
chid  all  hope,  saying  to  those  who  were  sent  from 

*  Necho  had  died  in  594  and  been  succeeded  by  his  son  Psam- 
metik  II,  who  did  not  come  out  of  Egypt  at  all  during  his  short 
reign. 


THE   LAST  DAYS   OF  JUDAH.  l8l 

the  king  to  enquire  of  him :  "  Behold  Pharaoh's 
army,  which  is  come  forth  to  help  you,  shall  return 
to  Egypt,  to  their  own  land.  And  the  Chaldeans 
shall  come  again  and  fight  against  this  city  ;  and 
they  shall  take  it,  and  burn  it  with  fire."  And  to  a 
secret  message  from  the  king,  asking :  "  Is  there  any 
word  from  the  Lord?  "  he  replied  :  "  There  is:  thou 
shalt  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  king  of 
Babylon."  In  vain  his  life  was  threatened  almost 
daily  ;  in  vain  he  was  lowered  by  cords  into  a  noi- 
some dungeon  filled  with  mire,  by  order  of  the 
princes  of  the  city,  who  said  :  "  This  man  weakeneth 
the  hands  of  the  men  of  war  that  remain  in  this  city, 
and  the  hands  of  all  the  people,  speaking  such  words 
as  these :  for  he  seeketh  not  the  welfare  of  the  peo- 
ple, but  the  hurt."  When  secretly  rescued  by  the 
command  of  the  king,  and  brought  into  his  presence, 
he  steadfastly  repeated  the  same  message  in  the 
same  words.  At  last  the  king,  unable  to  protect 
him  otherwise,  bade  him  remain  in  the  palace,  and 
there  he  stayed  in  the  court  of  the  guard,  until 
Jerusalem  was  taken,  when  Nebuchadrezzar  ordered 
him  to  be  treated  with  honor  and  set  at  liberty. 

14.   For  it  came  to  pass  according  to  the  prophet's 
words.     The    host    of  Egypt    was  struck 

,  ,  ,  1     -NT    1  1        1  Destruction 

down    at    one    blow  and   JNebuchadrezzar  ofjerusaiem 

byNebuchad- 

returned  with  all  his  army  and   besieged         rezzar.— 

686  B.C. 

Jerusalem,    establishing    his    own     head- 
quarters,  however,  at  some   distance,  at   Riblah   on 
the  Orontes,  in  the  land  of  Hamath,  whence  he  could 
not  only  overlook  the  operations  against  Judah,  but 
keep  an  eye  on  all  the  lands  of  Syria  and  the  cities 


1 82  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND    PERSIA. 

of  the  sea-coast.  The  siege  lasted  nearly  a  year  and 
a  half  and  the  horrors  of  it  pass  description.  Ac- 
cording to  the  account  given  by  Jeremiah,  (in  the 
Lamentations),  hunger  was  the  worst. 

"  The  priests  and  the  elders,"  he  writes,  "gave  up  the  ghost  in 
the  city,  while  they  sought  them  meat  to  refresh  their  souls.  .  .  . 
The  young  children  and  the  sucklings  swoon  in  the  streets  of  the 
city  ;  they  say  to  their  mothers,  Where  is  com  and  wine  ?  When 
they  swoon  as  the  wounded,  .  .  .  and  their  soul  is  poured  out 
into  their  mothers'  bosom.  .  .  .  Her  nobles  were  purer  than 
snow,  they  were  whiter  than  milk.  .  .  .  Their  visage  is 
blacker  than  a  coal  ;  .  .  .  their  skin  cleaveth  to  their  bones  ; 
it  is  withered,  it  is  become  like  a  stick.  They  that  be  slain  with  the 
sword  are  better  than  those  that  be  slain  with  hunger. 
The  hands  of  the  pitiful  women  have  sodden  their  own  children  ; 
they  were  their  meat  in  the  destruction  of  the  people." 

At  last  a  breach  was  made  in  the  wall,  and  the 
Chaldeans  gained  possession  of  one  of  the  gates. 
The  king  and  his  men  of  war  then  made  a  bold  sally 
and  attempted  to  cut  their  way  through  the  be- 
siegers. They  had  actually  broken  through  the 
lines,  out  into  the  open  country,  but  were  pursued, 
overtaken,  and  scattered.  As  to  king  Zedekiah,  he 
was  taken  before  the  king  of  Babylon,  to  Riblah, 
where  he  suffered  the  most  barbarous  treatment. 
His  sons  were  slain  in  his  presence,  after  which  his 
eyes  were  put  out  and  he  was  carried  in  chains  to 
Babylon,  there  to  end  his  days  in  prison.  The  walls 
of  Jerusalem  were  broken  down  ;  the  temple  and 
the  royal  palace  built  by  Solomon  were  burned  en- 
tirely, as  well  as  the  houses  of  the  wealthy  inhabi- 
tants, and  all  their  treasures  and  works  of  art  were 
carried  away  ;  those  that  were  cumbrous  by  reason 


THE   LAST  DAYS   OF  JUDAH.  1 83 

of  their  size,  like  the  pillars  of  brass  and  the  brazen 
sea,  were  broken  in  pieces.  All  the  people  of  Jeru- 
salem were  carried  into  captivity,  with  the  exception 
of  the  very  poorest,  who  were  left  behind  to  be  vine- 
dressers and  husbandmen, 

15.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  Hebrew  proph- 
ets, although  deeply  versed  in  the  politics  of  their 
times,  and  foretelling  with  unerring"  insight  the  ruin 
which,  in  the  course  of  history,  was  inevitably  to 
overtake  the  various  states,  great  and  small,  which 
formed  their  political  world,  were  sometimes  misled, 
by  their  eager  impatience  to  see  the  wrongs  they 
were  powerless  to  avert  avenged  on  their  rivals  and 
enemies  by  a  higher  power,  into  appointing  too  early 
a  date  for  their  destruction.*  Ezekiel  especially 
repeatedly  falls  into  this  error.  Thus  the  defeat  in- 
flicted on  the  Pharaoh  Hophra  did  not  result  in  the 
Chaldean  invasion  and  total  destruction  which  he 
depicts  in  his  otherwise  magnificent  dirge  over 
Egypt.  (Ezekiel,  ch.  XXXII.  and  other  passages.) 
No  less  premature  is  his  eloquent  prophecy  of  the 
fall  of  Tyre  (ch.  XXVI. -XXVIIL),  which  Nebuchad- 
rezzar proceeded  to  blockade  as  soon  as  he  had  done 
with  Judah.  The  Jews  suspected  the  proud  queen 
of  the  seas  of  being  at  heart  rather  pleased  than 
grieved  at  the  disaster  which  struck  them  from  the 
roll  of  nations,  and  their  captive  prophet  accordingly 
denounces  her  and  calls  down  destruction  on  her 
head  : 

"  Because    that  Tyre    hath  said  against  Jerusalem,    Aha  !    she  is 
broken  that  was  the  gate  of  the  peoples  ;    I  shall  be  replenished  now 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  429. 


1 84  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

that  she  is  laid  waste  ;  therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  God:  Behold,  I 
am  against  thee,  O  Tyre,  and  will  cause  many  nations  to  come  up 
against  thee,  as  the  sea  causelh  his  waves  to  come  up.  And  they 
shall  destroy  the  walls  of  Tyre,  and  break  down  her  towers.  I  will 
also  scrape  her  dust  from  her,  and  make  her  a  bare  rock.  .  .  .  For 
behold,  I  will  bring  upon  Tyre  Nebuchadrezzar  king  of  Babylon, 
king  of  kings,  from  the  north,  with  horses,  and  with  chariots,  and 
with  horsemen.   .   .   ."     (Ch.  XXVI.,  2-14.) 

That  the  Phoenician  capital  suffered  severely  is 
most  probable,  since  the  siege  is  said  to  have  lasted 

nigh  on  thirteen  years.  On  the  other 
by^N^ebuIhad'-hand,  the  very  fact  that  it  could  la.st  so 
585-5T3  B.C.     long  and  not  end   in   conquest  even  then, 

shows  that  the  blockade  could  not  have 
been  very  close.  How  should  it,  when  the  sea  re- 
mained open  ?  It  seems  to  have  ended  in  a  capitu- 
lation, the  people  of  Tyre  acknowledging  the  king  of 
Babylon's  overlordship  and  accepting  a  new  king 
from  his  hands,  in  place  of  the  "  rebel  "  who  was 
deposed. 

16.  The  prophet  Ezekiel,  seeing  his  prediction,  for 
the  time  being,  only  half  fulfilled,  takes  a  peculiar 
view  of  the  event.  He  appears  to  have  considered 
the  sack  of  Tyre  as  a  reward  due  to  the  king  of 
Babylon  for  the  work  he  did  as  instrument  of  the 
Lord's  vengeance  against  Judah,  and  speaks  in  a 
tone  of  disappointment  of  his  being  deprived  of  it : 

"  Nebuchadrezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  caused  his  army  to  serve  a 
great  service  against  Tyre  ;  every  head  was  made  bald,  and  every 
shoulder  was  peeled*  ;  yet  had  he  no  wages,  nor  his  army,  from  Tyre." 

Then  the  prophet  promises  the  conquest  of  Egypt 
as  a  compensation  : 

*  By  the  long  friction  (f  the  helmet  and  the  shield-strap. 


THE   LAST  DAYS   OF  J  UD  A II.  1 8$ 

"  Therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord  God  :  Behold,  I  will  give  the 
land  of  Egypt  unto  Nebuchadrezzar  king  of  Babylon,  and  he  shall 
carry  off  her  multitude,  and  take  her  spoil,  and  take  her  prey  ;  and 
it  shall  be  the  wages  for  his  army.  I  have  given  him  the  land  of 
Egypt  as  his  recompense  for  which  he  served,  because  they  wrought 
for  me." 

But  Nebuchadrezzar  never  invaded  Egypt. 
Though  a  good  general,  he  was  not  a  conqueror 
after  the  pattern  of  the  Assyrian  kings.  He  was  a 
statesman  as  well,  inclined  by  preference  to  works  of 
peace,  and  gave  the  most  unslackening  attention  to 
the  establishment  of  his  home-rule  at  Babylon  on 
broad  and  solid  bases — an  object  which  could  be  best 
achieved  by  a  continuous  personal  residence  in  his 
own  native  state,  Chaldea,  and  its  capital — Babylon. 
War,  therefore,  was  always  with  him  a  matter  of 
necessity,  not  of  choice,  and  he  strove  to  ensure  gen- 
eral peace  even  by  acting  as  peacemaker  between  his 
neighbors. 


VIII. 

LYDIA  AND  ASIA   MINOR — THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 
IN   THE   EAST. 


1.  A  GLANCE  at  the  map  shows  that  the  doom  of 
Judah  and  the  other  Syrian  states  was  inevitable. 
Their  position  made  it  a  necessity  for  whoever  ruled 
in  Mesopotamia  to  take  and  to  hold  them.  They 
really  were  part  and  parcel  of  the  Assyrian  inheri- 
tance, and  when  the  founders  of  a  Chaldean  mon- 
archy at  Babylon  entered  into  that  inheritance,  it 
was  but  natural  that  they  should  reach  out  for  the 
seashore  and  keep  a  heavy  master's  hand  on  all 
that  lay  between.  The  case  was  different  with 
such  countries  as  were  separated  by  natural  barriers 
from  what  may  be  called  the  Semitic  and  Canaanitic 
region — such  as  lay  in  and  beyond  the  highlands  of 
Taurus  and  Nairi,  i.e.,  in  Asia  Minor  and  the  moun- 
tain land  between  the  Black  and  Caspian  seas. 

2.  Of  these  countries  some  had  been  only  partly 
subject  to  Assyria,  like  the  kingdom  of  Van  and  the 
other  principalities  of  Urartu  on  one  hand,  Cilicia 
and  Cappadocia  on  the  other,  while  some  had  never 
been  subject  to  it  at  all,  but  only  endangered  by  its 
nearness  ;  these  were  the  countries  of  that  advanced 
part  of  Asia  Minor,  of  which  the  course  of  the  river 


LYDIA   AND  ASIA   MINOR'  1 8/ 

Halys  (the  modern  Kizil-Irmak),  according  to 
Herodotus'  just  remark,  almost  makes  an  island. 
For,  it  is  very  certain  that  the  Assyrians  never  saw 
the  yEgean  Sea — (that  part  of  the  Mediterranean 
which  flows  amidst  the  Greek  islands  and  along  the 
Ionian  shores) — any  more  than  the  Black  Sea.  And 
if  Lydia,  at  a  moment  of  sore  distress,  exchanged  her 
independence  against  Assyrian  protection,  the  sub- 
mission was  only  temporary  and  almost  immediately 
repented  of.* 

3.  We  saw  that  soon  after  that  passing  triumph, 
Asshurbanipal  became  too  much  engrossed  with 
vital  struggles  nearer  home — against  Chaldean  Baby- 
lon and  Elam  and  the  advancing  Medes — to  repress 
the  risings  of  his  outlying  subjects  and  vassals. 
Much  less  were  his  feeble  successors  able  to  attend 
to  any  thing  but  their  most  immediate  interests,  and 
while  the  Scythian  invasion  was  acting  on  the  totter- 
ing empire  as  an  earthquake  on  an  already  ruinous 
building,  changes  were  taking  place  in  and  beyond 
its  northern  boundaries,  which  it  is  impossible  to 
trace  in  those  unrecorded  years,  but  which  we  find 
accomplished  when  the  darkness  is  lifted  and  some 
degree  of  order  restored.  Thus  we  hear  no  more 
of  Urartu.  It  is  certain  that,  in  the  course  of  the 
seventh  century  B.C.,  the  Hittite  Alarodians  were 
supplanted  by  that  Thraco- Phrygian  branch  of  the 
Aryan  race,  which  is  represented  in  the  enumeration 
of  the  Japhetic  family  given  in  Chapter  X.  of  Gen- 
esis, as  Togarmah,  son  of  G6mer,f  and  has  been 
familiar  under  the  name  of   Armenians  ever  since 

*See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  378-3S2.     \ Ibid.,  pp.  367,  36S. 


1 88  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

the  Greek  writers  introduced  them  to  the  world  by 
that  name. 

4.  Lydia,  from  its  greater  remoteness,  was  still  in 
more  favorable  conditions,  and,  being  governed  by 
a  wise  and  enterprising  royal  house,  made  the  best 
use  of  her  opportunities,  enlarging  her  territory  at 
the  expense  of  her  neighbors.  This  dynasty  was 
that  of  the  MermnaD/E,  the  founder  of  which,  Gugu 
(Gyges),  we  saw  calling  in  Assyrian  help  against  the 
Cimmerians,  and  who  fell  in  the  struggle.  The 
Mermnadae  were  a  native  Lydian  family  who  had 
been  raised  to  the  throne  by  a  revolution.  Gyges 
murdered  Kandaules,  the  last  king  of  the  preced- 
ing dynasty,  which  had  ruled  the  country  through 
several  hundred  years,  and  probably  married  the 
murdered  man's  widow,  to  create  for  himself  a  claim, 
not  neglecting,  however,  the  support  of  some  troops 
from  the  adjoining  land  of  Caria.  The  story  of 
this  revolution  is  told  in  several  ways,  one  more  un- 
believable than  the  other.  The  favorite  version, 
and  also  the  least  improbable  in  itself,  though  there 
is  absolutely  no  real  authority  for  it,  is  given  by 
Herodotus.  He  tells  us,  in  his  usual  discursive  but 
always  charmingly  entertaining  way,  how  Gyges 
was  Kandaules'  bosom  friend,  and  how  the  king, 
being  violently  in  love  with  his  own  wife,  and  think- 
ing her  beauty  peerless  among  women,  was  so  anx- 
ious to  convince  his  friend  that  his  praise  of  her  was 
no  exaggeration,  that  he  insisted  on  placing  him  be- 
hind the  door  of  her  apartment,  so  that  he  should 
see  her  through  the  chink  when  she  disrobed  at 
night.     In  vain  Gyges  protested  against  being  forced 


LYDIA    AND   ASIA   MINOR.  1 89 

into  an  action  which,  if  discovered,  must  bring  on 
him  the  queen's  deadly  vengeance.  "  For,"  adds  the 
narrator,  "  among  the  Lydians,  and  indeed  among  the 
Barbarians  {i.e.,  the  Orientals),  it  is  reckoned  a  deep 
disgrace,  even  for  a  man,  to  be  seen  unclothed." 
Gyges  had  to  comply,  and  as  he  was  gliding  out  at  a 
moment  when  the  queen's  back  was  turned,  she  just 
caught  sight  of  him,  but  had  the  presence  of  mind 
to  make  no  sign.  The  next  morning,  however,  she 
sent  for  the  unwilling  culprit  and  placed  before  him 
the  alternative,  either  to  die  on  the  spot,  or  to  kill 
the  husband  who  had  so  beyond  pardon  affronted 
her,  then  to  marry  her  and  reign.  After  some  hesi- 
tation and  entreaties  to  spare  his  foolish  and  unfor- 
tunate friend,  he  chose  life  and  crown  for  himself. 
The  deed  was  done  that  very  night,  and  the  new 
king  proclaimed  the  next  day.* 

5.  Herodotus  adds  that  the  people  at  first  flew  to 
arms,  to  avenge  their  king,  but  the  matter  was 
referred  for  arbitration  to  the  oracle  of  the  Greek 
Sungod  Apollo,  in  his  own  shrine  at  Delphi.  The 
oracle  was  given  in  the  usurper's  favor,  only  adding 
that  vengeance  should  come  in  the  fifth  generation 
— "  a  prophecy,"  says  the  historian,  "  of  which  nei- 
ther the  Lydians  nor  their  princes  took  any  account 
until  it  was  fulfilled."  Of  all  the  more  or  less  fabu- 
lous incidents  which  Greek  historical  gossip  has  re- 
ported in  connection  with  this  revolution  and  change 

*  Herodotus,  Book  I.,  Ch.  8-14. — A  very  popular  tradition  gives 
Gyges  an  invisible-making  ring,  which  he  uses  on  the  occasion,  but  is 
a  little  too  quick  in  turning  on  his  finger,  so  the  queen  sees  him.  The 
miraculous  finding  of  the  ring  on  a  dead  giant's  finger  in  a  cave, 
is  also  reported. 


190  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

of  dynasty,  this  last  statement  is  the  one  which  there 
is  least  reason  to  doubt.  For  Lydia,  like  most  of 
the  adjacent  countries  of  Asia  Minor,  was  at  this 
time  already  deeply  permeated  with  Greek  influ- 
ences and  culture ;  indeed  their  population  was 
much  mixed  with  Greek,  or,  at  any  rate,  Aryan  ele- 
ments. 

6.  There  are  few  regions  of  which  the  early  his- 
tory is  so  inaccessible  as  this  of  Western  Asia  Minor. 
Literary  sources  we  have  none,  save  Greek  histories 
and  legends  written  down  so  late  as  to  be  much 
posterior  even  to  the  period  at  which  we  have  now 
arrived.  Monuments  have  been  discovered  not  a 
few,  but  of  a  peculiar  nature,  and  offering  a  deplor- 
able want  of  variety.  They  are,  firstly  those  rock, 
sculptures,  with  inscriptions  in  a  hitherto  undeci- 
phered  language,  which  have  been  mentioned  in  a 
preceding  volume*;  secondly,  a  large  number  of 
tombs.  Of  these,  some — like  the  tombs  of  the  kings 
of  Lydia — are  constructed  im  the  primeval  form  of 
high  mounds  or  "barrows,"  containing  a  good-sized 
sepulchral  chamber  in  solid  masonry.  The  rest — and 
such  are  found  in  bewildering  numbers  in  Lycia — 
are  hewn  in  live  rocks.  These  tombs  are  real  works 
of  art,  and  unlike  any  others  in  the  world,  being 
elaborate  imitations  of  the  dwellings  of  the  living, 
which,  as  we  can  see  from  these  reproductions,  were 
of  wood,  of  well-joined  timberwork.  The  tomb  usually 
represents  the  front  of  a  house — porch,  pillars,  door, 
windows,  roof-gable — closely  copying  the  joining, 
even  the  dovetailing  of  the  timber  and  the  protruding 

*See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  362-366. 


Face  page  iqO. 


^ 


/^^ 


LYDIA    AND   ASIA    MINOR. 


191 


ends  of  the  beams  that  run  through  the  building; 
the  copy  is  perfect  in  every  detail ;  thus  where  a 
closed  door  is  represented,  not  only  are  the  panels 
indicated,  but  frequently  the  nails  also  that  studded 
the  original ;  even  the  knocker.  (See  ill.  19).  One 
door,  or,  if  large,  part  of  one,  is  left  open,  to  serve  as 


^' 


.v^^^- 


19.    LYCIAN    ROCK-TOMB   AT    TELMESSUS. 

entrance  into  the  grave-chamber  behind,  which,  from 
the  height  at  which  these  excavations  are  hewn  in  the 
quite,  or  nearly,  perpendicular  rocks,  can  have  been 
reached  only  by  means  of  ladders,  except  where  steps 
have  been  cut  for  the  purpose.  There  is  no  doubt 
but  that  the  entrance  was  closed  with  a  well-fitting 
slab   or  block,  but   the   rapacity   of   generations   of 


IC)2 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 


plunderers  and  conquerors  was  sure  to  be  attracted 
by  these  retreats  of  the  dead,  which  might  well  be 
supposed  to  contain  valuables  of  various  kinds,  and 
in  no  case  have  the  modern  explorers  found  the  rock- 


20.    LYCIAN    ROCK-TOMB    AT   TELMESSUS. 

(The  block  has  been  detached  at  some  time,  and  slid   down   to  the  foot  of   the 
mountain.) 

chambers  occupied  by  their  silent  tenants.  These 
rock-hewn  house  fronts  vary  much  in  elaborateness, 
ranging  from  plain  timberwork  (see  ill.  19  and 
20)  to  highly  ornamented  porches,  the  architectural 


LYDIA    AND   ASIA    MINOR.  1 93 

character  and  figure  decorations  of  which  betray 
a  late  and  thoroughly  Greek  period  of  art.  (See 
ill.  21  and  22.)  It  is  easy  to  see  that  these  differ- 
ences cover  a  span  of  many  centuries ;  nor  can 
one  help  surmising  that  each  particular  rock-tomb 
may  have  been  a  conscious  imitation  of  the  deceased's 
own  dwelling.  This  original  variety  of  sepulchral 
monuments  found  imitators  not  only  among  the 
Greeks,  but  among  the  Persians.  (See  further  on, 
Chap.  XIII.)  Some  of  these  monuments  stand 
isolated,  presenting  copies  of  entire  wooden  houses, 
not  facades  only  (see  ill.  18,  left  side),  or  assuming  the 
form  of  towers.  Such  is  the  famous  tower-shaped 
monument  at  Xanthus,  in  Lycia ;  it  rises  above  the 
graves,  which,  though  rock-hewn,  have  been  cleared 
by  cutting  away  and  removing  the  blocks  immedi- 
ately surrounding  them  ;  and  the  four  sides  are  cov- 
ered with  sculptures  referring  to  the  fate  of  the  soul 
after  death.  The  winged  death-goddesses,  the  Har- 
pies, carry  the  soul  away  in  the  shape  of  a  new-born 
child,  and  above  the  opening  of  the  grave-chamber 
we  see  the  sacred  cow,  the  emblem  of  life-giving 
nature,  a  grateful  and  consoling  reminder.  (See 
ill.  23.)  Some  few  of  the  isolated  tombs  represent  a 
sarcophagus  (the  model  being,  like  the  houses,  evi- 
dently of  wood.)  The  sculptured  lid  shows  four 
handles,  in  the  shape  of  lion  heads.     (See  ill.  24.)* 

*It  seems  scarcely  credible  that  a  certain  style  of  building  should 
endure  in  the  same  locality  through  thousands  of  years  ;  yet  that  such 
is  the  case  in  Lycia,  is  proved  by  ill.  25,  26,  and  27,  representing 
rural  and  excessively  rude  constructions,  but  of  a  character  unmis- 
takably identical  with  that  of  the  dwellings  reproduced  in  the 
earlier  rock-tombs. 


2   O 
z    ii' 

>- 


22.    KOCK-TOMl-i    AT    MYKA. 
(Figures  outside  the  hoube  sculptured  in  the  rock  ;  those  inside  the  porch  painted  a  fresco.) 


196  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

7.  Interesting  and  important  as  these  sepulchral 
monuments  are,  they  do  not  supply  us  with  what  we 
seek.  We  find  no  clue  to  help  us  date  the  most 
archaic  of  them,  as  these  are  not  generally  furnished 
with  inscriptions.  Many  of  the  late  ones,  indeed, 
make  up  for  it  by  presenting  us  with  a  double  set, 
what  has  been  called  "  bilingual  inscriptions,"  i.e., 
inscriptions  in  two  languages — the  native,  and  Greek. 
From  these  we  see  that  the  alphabets  used  for  the 
two  languages  have  much  resemblance.  The  same 
remark  applies  to  such  Phrygian  inscriptions  as  have 
been  discovered.  The  languages  of  this  group  of 
nations,  i.e.,  such  scraps  as  the  few  inscriptions  have 
preserved,  although  they  can  be  deciphered  with  but 
little  difificulty,  owing  to  the  familiar  alphabet,  have 
not  been  reconstructed  to  any  satisfactory  extent, 
mainly  from  scantiness  of  material.  Even  these 
slender  resources,  however,  establish  the  existence 
of  at  least  two  different  groups  among  the  languages 
of  ancient  Asia  Minor  in  historical  times:  those  of 
Phrygia,  Mysia,  and  others  in  the  west  and  the 
northwest  are  found  to  incline  towards  a  very  ancient 
Aryan  philological  type,  the  Pelasgic,  from  which 
the  Greek  language  is  descended,  whih'  there  is  great 
uncertainty  about  those  of  Lycia  and  the  neigh- 
boring Caria.* 

8.  It  is  evidently  impossible,  from  such  slight  and 
scattered  data,  to  gather  materials  for  any  thing  that 
could  be  called  history,  yet   perhaps   not  quite   im- 

*  Professr  A.  H.  Sayce,  in  one  of  his  latest  works,  positively  de- 
clares that  the  Lycian  language  "is  not  Aryan,'  in  spite  of  all  the 
attempts  that  have  been  made  to  show  the  contrary." 


198  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

practicable  to  reconstruct,  in  very  broad  outlines,  the 
periods  of  formation  through  which  Asia  Minor  must 
have  passed  before  it  stands  out  in  the  full  light  of 
history,  with  its  division  into  numerous  more  or  less 
independent  states,  its  mixed  population,  its  compli- 
cated combination  of  religions  and  cultures  as  differ- 
ent as  the  races  which  originated  them.  The  oldest 
traditions,  repeated  by  the  writers  of  classical  an- 
tiquity, represent  all  Western  Asia — of  which  Asia 
Minor  is  undoubtedly  a  part — as  having  been  occu- 
pied, in  immemorial  time,  during  a  number  of  centu- 
ries, by  Turanians ;  a  report  which  modern  science 
sees  little  reason  to  dispute.*  The  immense  chasm 
between  this  remote,  misty  past  and  the  dawn  of 
recorded  historical  times,  though  still  greatly  mixed 
with  myth,  we  can  partly  bridge  over,  owing  to  Pro- 
fessor Sayce's  Hittite  discoveries.  He  has  shown,  by 
a  comparative  study  of  the  peculiar  rock-sculptures 
at  Boghaz-Keui  in  Cappadocia,  at  Ibriz  in  Cilicia,  at 
Karabel,  near  Smyrna,  and  in  many  more  places  of 
Asia  Minor,  with  their  inscriptions  in  characters 
identical  with  those  found  at  Hamath,f  that  this 
powerful  and  gifted  Hamitic  race,  the  Hittites,  at 
one  time  covered  and  ruled  the  whole  of  the  region 
between  the  Black  and  Mediterranean  seas,  as  far 
east  as  the  Halys,  and  probably  somewhat  beyond, 
leaving  their  traces  not  only  in  those  sculptures,  but 
in  several  sanctuaries  of  their  religion,  devoted  to 
the  worship  of  the  nature-goddess  common  to  them 
and  their  Canaanitic  and  Semitic  brethren,  and  whose 

*See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  Chapter  II.,  especially  pp.  136-139, 
f  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  ill.  5,  p.  36. 


■N*^-Vi.>3-^>x><"t- 


24.    SKfULCHRAL   MONUMENT    AT    XANTHOS    (MARBLE). 


LYDIA    AND   ASIA    MINOR-. 


20 1 


temples,  with  their  crowds  of  ministering  women, 
gave  rise  to  the  Greek  legend  of  the  Amazons.*  The 
fabled  empire  of  these  much- famed  warrior-women 
— the  head-quarters,  so  to  speak,  of  the  legend — was 
placed  on  the  banks  of  the  ThermODON,  at  no  very 
great  distance  from  the  present  ruins  of  Boghaz-Keui, 
and  we  know  that  the  goddess,  here  named  MA,  had 
one  of  her  principal  temples  served  by  no  less  than 
6,000  women,  in  that  same  neighborhood,  at  Ko- 
MANA  in  Cappadocia,  a  province  which  in  very  olden 


26.    GRANARY    IN   MODERN   LYCIA. 

times  stretched  farther  towards  the  Black  Sea  than 
at  a  later,  classical  period.  The  Amazons  were  said 
to  have  founded  cities.  Wherever  this  is  the  case, 
we  may  be  sure  that  ancient  Hittite  sanctuaries  ex- 
isted. Ephesus,  Smyrna,  Kyme,  and  several  other 
places  along  the  Ionian  coast  come  under  this  head.f 
9.  It  is  probable  that  the  Hittite  rule  and  culture 
reached  their  widest  westward  expansion  soon  after 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  30,  36,  205,  206,  and   360-367. 
f  See  A.  H.  Sayce's  "Ancient  Empires  of  the  East,"  p.  430. 


202 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 


the  fifteenth  century  B.C.,  and  maintained  their 
supremacy  until  about  the  year  looo  B.C.,  at  least  in 
Asia  Minor,  as  in  Syria — "  The  Land  of  Khatti "  of  the 
inscriptions, — they  had  already  begun  to  recede  be- 
fore the  aggressive  advance  of  Assyria,  and  the  pres- 
sure of  Semitic  elements  generally.  But  even  in 
Asia  Minor  the  great  Thraco-Phrygian  migration  had 
overspread  the  forgotten  Turanian  subsoil  and  Hit- 
tite  cultivated  ground  with  an  Indo-European  top- 
layer,'^  and  apart  from  this  movement,  during  the 
century  ranging  from  somewhere  in  the  tenth — i.e.^ 


2"].    GRANARY   IN   MODERN   LYCIA. 

soon  after  looo  B.C. —  to  the  middle  of  the  ninth  or 
later,  Asia  Minor  was  subjected  to  a  continuous  flow 
of  Indo-European  influences  from  a  far  more  con- 
genial and  civilizing  quarter — the  continent  and 
islands  of  Southern  Greece  and  Peloponnesus. 

lo.  An  important  revolution  was  then  slowly,  but 
by  no  means  peacefully,  changing  the  face  of  the 
rather  motley  assemblage  of  small  states,  republics, 
and  free  cities  which  was  a  couple  of  hundred  years 
later  to  glory  in  the  common  name  of  HELLAS.    The 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  360  and  367-369. 


204  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

people,  whose  differences  and  hostilities  were  to  be 
merged  in  the  proud  and  all-embracing  nationality 
of  the  Hellenes  (whom  we  have  learned  from  the 
Romans  to  designate,  less  correctly,  as  GREEKS), 
were  as  yet  broken  up  into  a  variety  of  tribes,  all 
highly  gifted,  and  all  descended  from  the  old  stock 
of  the  Pelasgl  Two  of  these,  the  AcH/EANS  and 
the  lONIANS,  were  in  possession  of  the  Peloponnesos 
and  of  a  considerable  strip  of  sea-coast  north  of  the 
Isthmus  of  Corinth,  including  the  peninsula  of  Attica. 
A  third  tribe,  the  DORIANS,  had,  for  times  untold, 
dwelt  in  the  higher  belt  of  Epirus  and  Thessaly, 
mountain-lands  where  they  developed  the  stern 
and  rugged  temper,  the  love  of  war,  and  contempt 
of  trade  and  crafts  so  generally  characteristic  of 
highlanders.  Some  time  about  looo  B.C.,  there  was 
a  great  stir  among  them.  Moved  by  awakening  am- 
bition of  conquest  and  power,  perhaps  also  crowded 
by  their  increasing  numbers  in  their  numerous  but 
narrow  valleys,  they  began  to  descend  southward, 
into  the  milder,  more  beautiful  land  by  the  sea. 
Where  they  passed,  they  appropriated  the  soil,  en- 
slaving its  former  owners,  who  were  now  expected 
to  work  it  for  the  conquerors;  in  cities  they  estab- 
lished an  iron  rule,  and  wherever  they  met  resist- 
ance, they  waged  war,  even  to  extermination.  It 
took  this  movement,  known  in  history  as  "  The 
Descent  of  the  Dorians,"  about  a  hundred  years  to 
reach  the  Corinthian  Isthmus,  that  short  and  narrow 
causeway  which  alone  prevents  Peloponnesus  from 
being  an  island,  torn  from  the  Greek  mainland,  as 
Sicily  is  from  that   of  Italy.     They  poured  into  the 


206  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA, 

peninsula  through  this  entrance,  and  also  in  ships, 
across  the  long  and  narrow  gulf,  and  there  their  ad- 
vent produced  the  effect  of  a  heavy  body  falling  into 
a  vessel  filled  with  liquid  :  there  is  a  splash,  a  spurt, 
and  the  liquid  overflows  on  all  sides.  There  was  no 
getting  rid  of  the  Dorians,  for  they  were  no  com- 
mon invaders.  Their  genius  for  war  made  them 
proceed  after  a  uniform  and  systematic  fashion  that 
crushed  resistance,  while,  being  equally  possessed  of 
the  qualities  that  organize  governments  and  ensure 
the  duration  of  states,  their  watchfulness  and  energy 
bafifled  conspiracies  and  made  popular  risings  hope- 
less. The  ancient  Achaean  commonwealths  and 
more  recent  Ionian  confederations  of  free  cities  had 
but  one  alternative  before  them  :  submission  or  self- 
banishment.  Thousands  of  people,  led  by  noble 
families  of  oldest  and  most  firmly  established  stand- 
ing, chose  the  latter — and  the  age  of  colonies  began. 
Greek  ships  bore  away  detachment  after  detachment 
of  exiles,  of  all  stations  in  life  and  all  pursuits,  and 
landed  them  at  innumerable  points  along  the  shores 
of  the  surrounding  seas  :  at  various  parts  of  Sicily 
and  Southern  Italy,  on  the  coasts  of  Illyria  and 
Epirus  on  one  side,  of  Macedon  and  Thracia  on  the 
other,  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the  Bosporus,  nay,  the 
inside  of  the  Black  Sea  itself.  Many  such  detach- 
ments stopped  on  this  or  that  of  the  many  islands 
which  seemed  scattered  broadcast  over  the  blue 
waters  on  purpose  to  receive  them.  And  wherever  a 
handful  of  sad-faced  emigrants  raised  their  huts  and 
tents,  bearing  with  them  out  of  the  old  life  nothing 
but  a  few  family  relics,  a  little  of  their  native  earth, 


LYDIA   AND  ASIA   MINOR.  20/ 

and  a  spark  of  the  sacred  fire,  kindled  at  the  old  city- 
hearth, — there,  in  an  amazingly  short  time,  blossomed 
and  prospered  first  a  settlement,  then  a  thriving  city, 
the  colonies  becoming  so  many  stations  of  Greek 
commerce  and  Greek  culture.  So  that  after  a  while 
it  became  customary  for  Greek  cities  to  send  out 
colonies  without  any  mournful  occasion,  simply  to 
extend  their  influence  and  increase  their  own  pros- 
perity, by  opening  out  new  channels  of  trade  and 
enterprise  in  distant  and  only  partially  explored 
countries.  Many,  indeed,  were  founded  by  the  Do- 
rians themselves. 

II.  Of  all  these  outposts  of  Hellenic  culture,  none 
rose  so  rapidly  or  prospered  so  luxuriously  as  the 
colonies,  founded  chiefly  by  fugitive  lonians,  along 
the  shores  of  Asia  Minor,  to  which  they  gave  their 
name.  The  movement,  an  immediate  consequence 
of  the  Dorian  conquests,  began  soon  after  looo  B.C., 
and  continued  through  more  than  two  centuries. 
The  emigrants  selected  the  sites  of  their  settlements 
with  admirable  skill,  mostly  at  the  mouth  of  rivers — 
the  Hermos,  the  Kayster,  the  Meander — at  the 
foot  of  sheltering  mountains,  on  commanding  prom- 
ontories, on  points  that  invited  commerce,  yet  en- 
sured defence  and  seclusion  if  necessary,  by  no  means 
a  secondary  consideration,  since  the  new-comers  did 
not  plant  their  tents  in  waste  and  unclaimed  lands, 
but  in  the  midst  of  populous  and  already  civilized 
countries,  where  they  could  not  expect  to  obtain  a 
firm  footing  without  encountering  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  native  people.  Both  the  Lydians  and 
Carians  were  nations  renowned  in  war,  and  were  not 


208 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 


^f^^ 


likely  to    allow    strangers    to    have   possession,    un- 
opposed, of  their  choicest  territories,  their  sea-coast, 

and  the  mouths  of  their 
rivers.  Yet  we  have  no 
positive  knowledge  of  the 
wars  which  must  of  ne- 
cessity have  accompanied 
the  establishment  of  the 
Greek  settlers.  Nor  do 
they  appear  to  have 
been  as  long  and 
fierce  as  might  be 
expected,  for  when  real 
history  begins,  it  shows  us 
the  Greek  cities  clustered 
in  well  organized  con- 
federacies, individually 
flourishing,  mutually  pro- 
tected, and  apparentle  un- 
molested by  the  surround- 
ing population,  with  which 
they  seem  to  have,  to  a 
great  extent,  mingled  by 
intermarriage  and  social 
intercourse.  Even  reli- 
gion docs  not  appear  to 
have  formed  any  impass- 
able barrier  be- 
tween them.  At 
Smyrna,  Kyme, 
Myrina,  Ephesus,  the  Greeks  found  sanctuaries 
of   the    ancient    Hittite    nature-goddess,    with    the, 


30.       STATUE  OK  THE   ARTEMIS  OF  EPHESUS. 

(For  the  Kerubitu — winged  bull's  heads—  within 
the  disk,  compare  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  164 .) 


LYDIA    AND   ASIA    MINOR..  209 

to  them  so  novel,  Amazonian  worship,  and  unhesi- 
tatingly adopted  the  deity,  merely  changing  her 
name  to  the  familiar  one  of  their  own  Artemis.* 
The  Oriental  origin  of  the  conception  embodied  in 
the  goddess  is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  uncouth 
but  transparent  symbolism  of  her  statue  in  her  great 
temple  at  Ephesus,  foreign  to  all  Greek  principles 
of  beauty  in  art  (see  ill.  30),  yet  so  expressive  of 
what  it  is  meant  to  convey  :  the  idea  of  nature  as 
the  source  of  all  life  and  nourishment.  The  sun-god 
of  the  Asiatics,  too,  in  his  different  aspects,  the 
Greeks  easily  identified  with  their  own  youthful  and 
radiant  god  APOLLO,  or  their  toiling,  travelling  semi- 
human  solar  hero,  Herakles,  himself  an  inheritance 
of  Phoenicia  and  Chaldea,  a  revised  edition  of  the 
Syrian  Melkarth  and  the  Babylonian  Izdubar.f  The 
Lydian  name  of  the  sun-god  was  Sandon,  and  he 
had  a  highly  revered  national  sanctuary  near  the 
place  where  the  Greeks  built  MiLETUS,  the  queen  of 
Ionian  cities.  This  sanctuary  was  served  by  a  native 
hereditary  priesthood  of  the  family  known  as  the 
Branchid.E.  When  the  Greeks  came,  they  at  once 
adopted  the  sanctuary,  which  became  as  famous  as 
that  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis,  under  the  name  of  tem- 
ple of  "  Didymaean  Apollo,"  and  was  left  in  the  charge 
of  its  high-born  guardians.  Nor  were  the  people  of 
Asia  Minor  at  all  unwilling  to  acknowledge  the  spir- 
itual kinship  on  their  own  side ;  and  so  it  came  to  pass 
that,  being  moreover  attracted  by  the  surpassing  love- 
liness of  Greek  culture  and  myth,  they  fell  into  the 

*  See  above,  p.  208,  and  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  365,  366. 
f  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  90  ;  arifl  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  Ch.  VII. 


2IO  MEDIA,    BABYION,    AND   PERSIA. 

habit  of  sending  presents  to  the  most  renowned  centres 
of  Greek  worship,  and  consulting  the  Greek  gods 
through  their  oracles — i.  e.,  through  those  of  their 
ministers  who  were  considered  to  possess  the  gift 
of  divine  inspiration  and  to  deliver  the  messages 
of  the  god  or  interpret  the  signs  sent  by  him.  The 
temple  and  oracle  of  Apollo  at  DELPHI  was  the 
most  widely  famed  and  revered,  and  became  a  favor- 
ite resort  of  the  "  Barbarians,"  whose  lavish  offerings 
greatly  enriched  its  treasure-houses.  This  is  why 
we  may  consider  the  report  of  Gyges  referring  his 
claim  to  the  Lydian  throne  to  the  arbitration  of  the 
Delphic  Apollo  as  the  least  doubtful  of  the  state- 
ments made  concerning  the  revolution  which  trans- 
ferred the  royal  power  to  the  dynasty  of  the  Merm- 
nadae.  Herodotus  specifies  the  gifts  sent  by  Gyges 
to  the  Delphic  shrine,  in  gratitude  for  the  verdict 
which  confirmed  his  title  ;  they  consisted  in  a  large 
quantity  of  silver  and  "a  vast  number  of  vessels  of 
gold."  Gyges,  according  to  the  same  historian,  "  was 
the  first  of  the  barbarians  whom  we  know  to  have 
sent  offerings  to  Delphi/'  with  the  exception  of  a 
certain  king  of  Phrygia  who,  even  before  his  time, 
sent  thither  and  dedicated  to  the  god  the  royal 
throne  whereon  he  was  accustomed  to  sit  and  to  ad- 
minister justice — "  an  object,"  Herodotus  adds,  "  well 
worth  looking  at." 

12.  In  point  of  material  civilization,  the  Lydians 
were  probably  far  ahead  of  the  new-comers,  at  the 
early  period  of  Greek  emigration.  They  were  pos- 
sessed of  great  skill  in  various  industrial  arts,  espe- 
cially those  of  dyeing  wool  and  weaving ;  and  Lydian 


31.      RUINS   OF   THE   TEMPLE    OF    THE    DIDYM^AN   APOLLO,    NEAR 
MILETUS. 


212  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

carpets  and  rugs  enjoyed  a  reputation  which  we  see 
surviving  even  to  our  own  day,  after  so  many  ages 
and  vicissitudes,  in  the  great  demand  for  Smyrna 
rugs.  The  influence,  then,  must  have  been  mutual, 
more  spiritual  on  the  Greek  side  and  more  material 
on  that  of  the  Lydians,  The  country,  moreover, 
abounded  in  precious  metals,  and  that  led  to  an  in- 
vention which  opened  a  new  era  to  social  and  inter- 
national intercourse  and  made  a  revolution  in  the 
commercial  ways  of  the  world  :  the  invention  of  coin- 
ing money.  It  is  most  probably  to  Gyges,  the  first 
of  the  Mermnadai,  that  the  credit  of  this  invention 
is  due,  so  simple  in  its  principles,  yet  so  portentous 
in  its  results. 

13.  Even  so  late  as  this,  the  seventh  century  B.C., 
a  vast  proportion  of  the  active  trade  between  nations 
was  still  carried  on  on  the  primitive  basis  of  barter, 
i.  e.,  exchange  of  one  commodity  for  another,  of  raw 
materials  for  manufactured  products,  of  art  luxuries 
for  the  necessaries  of  life,  or  other  luxuries,  etc. 
This  must  have  necessarily  been  the  case  especially 
in  the  commercial  transactions  between  civilized  na- 
tions and  savages  or  semi-civilized  peoples,  to  whom 
direct  exchange  was  the  only  intelligible  and  safe 
financial  operation.  But  in  the  transactions  between 
merchants  of  the  same  nation  or  of  different  equally 
civilized  nations,  the  need  of  some  less  cumbrous 
means  of  doing  business  had  long  been  felt, — and 
supplied.  It  consisted  in  substituting /z/r^r//^^^  for 
barter,  i.  e.,  exchanging  merchandises,  not  against 
other  merchandise,  but  against  something  of  equal 
value,  convenient  in  shape  and  volume,  which  at  any 


214  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND    PERSIA. 

moment  could  be  in  its  turn  exchanged  for  whatever 
wares  the  owner  needed.  Of  course  the  intrinsic  value 
of  such  a  medium  of  exchange  must  be  a  universally 
acknowledged  one,  determined  by  general  agreement. 
It  has  from  times  immemorial  been  found  expedient 
to  invest  with  such  standard  value  the  so-called  pre- 
cious metals,  gold  and  silver.  Once  the  positive 
value  of  a  given  weight  of  the  metal  had  been  settled, 
it  only  remained  to  divide  masses  of  it  into  a  great 
many  smaller  pieces,  each  weighing  a  certain  fraction 
of  the  standard  weight,  and  consequently  represent- 
ing a  certain,  well-defined  fraction  of  the  standard  unit 
value.  Henceforth  the  merchant  who  sold  a  rug,  or 
a  dagger,  or  a  vessel  of  fine  glass,  was  not  forced  to 
take  in  payment  a  number  of  live  sheep,  or  of  sheep- 
skins, or  of  measures  of  grain,  or  a  wagon-load  of  hay, 
— or  any  other  ponderous  and  cumbersome  wares 
that  his  customer  might  happen  to  have  on  hand  ; 
nor  need  a  farmer,  disposing  of  his  surplus  stock 
or  grain,  take  in  exchange  for  it  articles  that,  per- 
haps, were  not  at  all  what  he  wanted.  A  bar,  or  a 
certain  number  of  rings  of  gold  or  silver  did  the  busi- 
ness much  better  and  could  be  put  away  and  kept 
till  needed  for  a  purchase.  The  facility  thus  offered 
for  transfer  of  bulky  property — such  as  land,  houses, 
etc., — was  immense  ;  and  how  early  it  was  made  use 
of,  we  see  from  that  curious  statement  in  Genesis 
(Ch,  XXIII.)  which  shows  us  Abraham,  a  contempo- 
rary of  the  Elamite  Khudur-Lagamar,*  paying  his 
Hittite  hosts,  for  the  field  he  requested  of  their 
courtesy,  400  shekels  of  silver,  "  such  as  are  current 
with  the  merchants." 

*  See   "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  222—224. 


LYDIA    AND   ASIA    MINOR.'  21 5 

14.  Gold  and  silver,  used  in  this  manner — with  a 
well-defined  unit-weight  of  standard  value  divided 
into  corresponding  fractional  weights — evidently 
answered  the  purpose  of  money  in  commercial  trans- 
actions. Can,  then,  those  bars,  ingots,  and  rings  be 
called  "  money"  ?  They  might — but  for  one  thing: 
they  are  not  warranted.  Who  is  to  assure  the  seller 
who  receives  them  in  payment,  of  the  fulness  of  the 
weight  and  the  purity  of  the  metal?  No  one.  Ac- 
cordingly we  see  that  Abraham  weigJis  out  the  400 
shekels  which  he  pays  for  the  field.  After  this  man- 
ner— by  weighing — were  all  payments  made,  and 
the  quality  of  the  metal  was  tested  by  means  of  a 
touchstone.  And  it  remained  with  the  seller  to 
accept  or  reject  the  bars  or  rings,  according  as  he 
thought  the  weight  full  or  short,  the  quality  pure  or 
inferior.  Now  we  do  not  weigh  the  coins  we  pay 
and  receive,  nor  are  we  allowed  to  reject  them.  We 
take  them  on  trust.  We  are  bound  so  to  take  them, 
because  they  are  warranted  of  good  weight  and 
standard  purity,  by  our  governments,  who,  in  token 
thereof,  stamp  each  coin  with  a  certain  device  and 
legend  which  private  persons  are  forbidden  to  use. 
Guarantee  and  trust — this  is  the  mutual  contract  be- 
tween ruler  and  ruled  which  at  once  converts  a  mere 
merchandise  into  money  or  state  currency.  There 
was  just  this  one  step  to  take,  and  it  seems  strange 
that  the  Phoenicians,  those  matchless  traders,  should 
have  missed  it.  Nor  can  we  well  account  for  the  fact 
that  so  momentous  an  improvement  should  have  been 
made  in  Lydia  rather  than  anywhere  else,  except  by 
the  large  quantities  of    precious  metals  which  this 


2l6 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 


country  yielded,  almost  for  the  trouble  of  picking 
them  up.  Not  only  were  easily  accessible  veins  of 
precious  ore  worked  in  the  principal  Lydian  moun- 
tain ridges,  Tmolos  and  SiPYLOS,  but  the  sands 
of  the  river  Pactolos,  which  flowed  through 
the  capital,    Sardis,  carried     along  a  bountiful  per- 


33.    EARLY   AND    LATER    LYDIAN   COINS. 

centage  of  a  peculiar  kind  of  pale  gold,  largely 
mixed  with  silver,  obtainable  by  the  easy  process  of 
washing.  This  mixture,  in  which  the  proportion  of 
silver  ranges  from  twenty  to  over  forty  per  cent.,  is 
known  under  the  special  name  of  ELECTRON,  whether 


LYDIA    AND  ASIA    MINOR:  21/ 

natural,  as  found  in  Lydia,  or  imitated  artificially,  as 
it  has  been  at  various  times.  Of  this  electron,  which 
was  considered  inferior  in  value  to  gold,  but  superior 
to  silver,  the  first  Lydian  coins  were  made.  Num- 
bers of  them,  and  also  of  pure  gold  and  silver  coins, 
have  been  found  within  a  circuit  of  thirty  miles 
round  Sardis,  and  very  rude  they  were,  showing  only 
the  square  punch  mark.  Only  after  a  series  of  grad- 
ual improvements,  we  see  the  well-drawn  device  of 
royal  Lydia — a  lion's  head,  or  a  lion  and  bull — make 
its  appearance,  under  Gyges'  fourth  descendant,  the 
celebrated  Kroisos.  The  invention,  however,  has 
remained  associated  with  the  name  of  the  former, 
and  late  Greek  authors  speak  of  ancient  coins  which 
they  call  *'  gold  pieces  of  Gyges."  Thus  it  is  that 
of  the  half-dozen  great  inventions  which,  each  in 
turn,  can  be  said  to  have  changed  the  face  of  the 
world — the  alphabet,  coining,  printing,  gunpowder, 
the  use  of  steam  and  electricity — we  owe  two  to  re- 
mote antiquity  and  to  Oriental  nations.  * 

15.  When  the  dynasty  of  the  Mermnadae  came  to 
the  throne  in  the  person  of  Gyges,  the  change  made 
itself  felt  at  once  in  the  greater  energy,  ambition, 
and  sounder  statesmanship  which  were  exerted,  both 
in  foreign  and  domestic  affairs.  A  steady  policy  of 
territorial  aggrandizement  was  inaugurated  by  the 
annexation  of  Mysia.  The  blunder  that  had  been 
made  by  former  kings,  in  suffering  the  Greek  settle- 

*  Several  writers,  both  ancient  and  modern,  claim  the  invention 
of  coining  for  the  Greeks  and  attribute  it  to  a  Greek  tyrant,  Phei- 
DON  OF  Argos,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  contemporary  of  Gyges. 
The  probabilities  are  that  Pheidon  was  the  first  to  appreciate  the  new 
invention  and  to  introduce  it  into  his  own  country. 


21 8  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

merits  to  extend  their  chain  of  many  links  all  along 
the  sea-coast,  was  to  be  retrieved,  and  Gyges  began  a 
systematical  attack  against  the  Greek  cities,  com- 
mencing with  those  nearest  tohim,  with  the  firm  intent 
of  making  them  subject  to  Lydia,  that  the  country 
might  repossess  itself  of  the  mouths  of  its  own  rivers 
and  the  harbors  of  its  own  sea-coast.  But  the  cities 
had  become  populous  and  strong,  and  valiantly  held 
their  own.  Moreover,  the  operations  were  unexpect- 
edly interrupted  by  that  Cimmerian  invasion  of  which 
we  know  the  fatal  issue  for  the  Lydian  king.* 

i6.  His  son  Ardys,  however,  and  his  grandson 
Sadyattes,  when  freed  from  the  inroads  of  the 
obnoxious  freebooters,  resumed  the  thoroughly  na- 
tional war  against  the  Greek  cities.  Some  they  took, 
others  repulsed  them,  and  Miletus  especially,  which 
had  defied  Gyges,  was  still  as  unconquered  as  ever 
half  a  century  later,  under  Sadyattes,  actually  send- 
ing out  colonies,  and  generally  living  its  busy,  pros- 
perous life  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  besieging 
Lydians.  Then  Sadyattes,  not  to  weary  his  soldiers' 
strength  and  patience,  invented  a  new  and  most  in- 
genious mode  of  warfare,  which  is  best  described  in 
Herodotus'  own  entertaining  narrative  : 

"  When  the  harvest  was  ripe  on  the  ground,  he  marched  his  army 
into  Milesia  to  the  sound  of  pipes  and  harps  and  flutes.  The 
buildings  that  were  scattered  over  the  country  he  neither  pulled 
down  nor  burnt,  nor  did  he  even  bear  away  the  doors,  but  left  them 
standing  as  they  were.  He  cut  down,  however,  and  utterly  de- 
stroyed all  the  trees  and  all  the  corn  throughout  the  land  and  then 
returned  to  his  own  dominions.  It  was  idle  for  his  army  to  sit  down 
before  the  place,  as  the  Milesians  were  masters  of  the  sea.    The  reason 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  378-381. 


LYDIA    AND  ASIA    MINOR.  219 

that  he  did  not  demolish  their  buildings  was,  that  the  inhabitants 
might  be  tempted  to  use  them  as  homesteads  from  which  to  go  forth 
and  till  and  sow  their  lands,  and  so  each  time  he  invaded  their  coun- 
try he  might  find  something  to  plunder.  In  this  way  he  carried  on 
the  war  for  eleven  years,  in  the  course  of  which  he  inflicted  on  them 
two  terrible  blows." 

17.  Of  these  eleven  years,  six  only  fall  to  the  reign 
of  Sadyattes ;  the  other  five  belong  to  that  of  his 
son  Alyattes.  This  was  the  greatest  of  the  Lydian 
kings.  Under  him  the  dynasty  of  the  Mermnadas, 
which  was  to  end  so  tragically  already  in  the  next 
generation,  reached  its  culminating  point  of  glory. 
The  Lydian  monarchy  had  gradually  absorbed  all 
the  surrounding  countries  of  Asia  Minor  as  far  as 
the  river  Halys,  which  now  marked  its  eastern  boun- 
dary. There,  however,  it  was  confronted  by  the 
newly  formed  Median  monarchy,  which  had  reached 
the  same  line  moving  towards  it  from  the  opposite 
direction.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  each  poten- 
tate was  anxious  to  cross  the  slight  dividing  line  and 
therefore  looked  grimly  and  threateningly  on  the 
other,  and  that  the  only  question  was  :  Which  of  the 
two  would  find  a  plausible  pretence  for  aggression  ? 
Chance  gave  this  advantage  to  Kyaxares  of  Media. 
A  body  of  Scythian  soldiers,  probably  a  picked 
guard  composed  of  survivors  of  the  massacre  which 
delivered  the  Medes  from  their  troublesome  guests, 
— who  had  been  some  time  in  Kyaxares'  service,  left 
him  secretly,  being  discontented  with  something  or 
other,  and,  crossing  the  Halys,  sought  the  protection 
of  Alyattes.  Kyaxares  demanded  that  the  desert- 
ers should  be  sent  back  to  him,  and,  on  the  Lydian's 
refusal  to  do  so,  declared  war. 


220  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

i8.  Alyattes  was  ready  for  him,  having  some  time 
before  closed  the  conflict  against  the  Greek  cities,  in 
a  manner,  on  the  whole,  satisfactory  to  himself:  the 
smaller  cities  had  submitted  to  Lydian  supremacy 
and  agreed  to  pay  tribute,  but  with  the  proud  and 
unconquerable  Miletus  he  had  been  fain  to  make 
peace  and  to  enter  into  a  treaty  of  friendship  and 
alliance.  He  was  therefore  free  to  give  his  whole 
attention  to  a  war  from  which  perhaps  he  was  not 
averse  in  the  beginning,  but  which  soon  grew 
into  a  vital  conflict.  It  is  probable  that  he  found 
in  the  young  and  aspiring  power  of  the  Medes 
a  more  formidable  foe  than  he  had  counted  upon. 
Still  Lydia  stood  her  ground  most  bravely,  and  the 
success  of  the  war  kept  evenly  balanced  between  the 
two  adversaries  through  five  whole  years;  but  the 
final  victory  was  about  to  incline  towards  Kyaxares, 
and  he  would  surely  have  annexed  at  one  stroke  the 
whole  of  Asia  Minor,  but  for  the  timely  interference 
of  neighbors,  who  saw  great  danger  to  themselves  in 
the  sudden  aggrandizement  of  their  rising 
Battle  of  the  j-jvai.  An  unlookcd  for  accidcnt  gave  them 

bclipse. —  o 

Dea^h^of  ^^^  ^^^^  possible  Opportunity.  A  great 
^^b'c"^"  battle  was  fought,  which  would  probably 
have  been  decisive,  when  the  sun  suddenly 
was  obscured,  and  such  darkness  set  in  that  the  day 
was  turned  into  night.  An  eclipse  of  the  sun  was 
even  then  no  very  terrible  thing,  and  the  Greeks 
claim  that  this  particular  one  had  been  predicted  by 
one  of  their  wise  men,  TiiALES  OF  MiLETUS.  But 
the  Medes,  on  one  side,  were  very  much  behind  their 
time  in  knowledge  of  all  sorts,  and  so,  for  that  mat- 


LYDIA    AND   ASIA    MINOR..  221 

ter,  was  the  bulk  of  the  Lydian  army.  So  there  was 
a  general  panic,  and  both  armies  refused  to  con- 
tinue an  engagement  begun  under  such  disastrous 
auspices.  Here  was  a  chance  for  peace-makers  to 
be  heard.  Nebuchadrezzar  of  Babylon  and  SyeN- 
NESIS,  King  of  Cilicia,  a  country  that  had  recovered 
its  independence  by  the  fall  of  Assyria,  and  main- 
tained it,  like  Lycia,  against  all  comers,  undertook 
the  task  of  reconciliation.  They  seem  to  have 
spoken  to  willing  ears,  and  arranged  a  marriage 
which  was  to  cement  the  friendship  between  the  two 
kings  who  had  learned,  at  all  events,  to  respect  each 
other,  and  to  prefer  an  alliance  to  further  hostilities. 
Aryenis,  the  daughter  of  Alyattes,  was  given  in 
marriage  to  ASTYAGES,  eldest  son  of  Kyaxares  and 
heir  presumptive  to  the  Median  Empire.  As  Kyax- 
ares' daughter,  Amytis  or  Amuhia,  was  already 
queen  of  Babylon,*  these  three  great  powers — Media, 
Babylon,  and  Lydia,  now  formed  a  triple  alliance, 
which  could  not  but  carry  all  before  it,  and  against 
whom  any  small  principality  had  little  chance  indeed. 
Western  Asia  was  now  pretty  evenly  divided  be- 
tween them,  for  what  might  be  wanting  to  Lydia 
in  mere  extent  of  territory,  was  amply  made  up  for  by 
the  extreme  fertility  of  her  dominions,  her  flourish- 
ing trade  and  boundless  natural  resources,  as  well  as 
by  her  dense  population  and  the  exhaustless  wealth 
of  her  cities,  among  which  she  now  numbered  most 
of  the  Greek  colonies.  Thus  a  real  balance  of  powers 
was  established  in  the  East — the  first  known  in- 
stance of  that  jealous  policy  which  has  now  for  so 
*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  428. 


222  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

long  been  the  leading  principle  of  European  states- 
men. 

19.  The  date  of  the  Battle  of  the  Eclipse  has  been 
the  subject  of  unending  discussion,  because,  unfor- 
tunately, there  have  been  several  eclipses  about  that 
time,  within  some  thirty  years,  and  it  was  found  very 
dif^cult  to  determine  which  was  the  one  predicted 
by  Thales.  Scholars,  however,  influenced  by  various 
historical  and  chronological  considerations,  at  present 
generally  incline  to  give  it  the  latest  possible  date — 
which  would  be  585,  as  Kyaxares  died  in  584. 


IX. 


BABYLON   THE    GREAT — THE   HOUSE   EGIBI. 


I.  Where  possessions  and  power  are  nicely  bal- 
anced by  common  consent,  the  natural  consequence 
is  mutual  watchfulness  and  suspiciousness.  An  asso- 
ciation is  formed,  the  members  of  which  agjree  to  be 
content  with  what  they  have  and  not  to  seek  aggran- 
dizement at  one  another's  expense.  But  even  as  they 
make  the  agreement,  each  knows  perfectly  well — judg- 
ing from  his  own  inclination — that  they  will  all  keep 
to  it  just  as  long  as  they  will  think  proper  or  until  a 
tempting  opportunity  offers,  and  not  one  moment 
longer.  For  this  opportunity  each  of  the  associates 
watches  with  a  double  eagerness  :  not  to  miss  it  him- 
self and  to  prevent  any  of  the  others  availing  him- 
self of  it.  Moreover,  as  a  balance  of  power  is  more 
frequently  organized  for  the  unavowed  purpose  of 
restraining  the  excessive  growth  of  some  alarmingly 
vigorous  and  enterprising  neighbor  than  simply  on 
general  principles,  there  is  usually  a  sense  of  danger 
impending  from  some  particular  quarter,  which  quar- 
ter naturally  becomes  the  object  of  more  jealous 
supervision  and  suspicion.  Usually,  too,  all  the 
watching  and  fencing  serves  but  little  in  the  end,  for 
where  strength  is,  it  will  be  put  forth  and  prevail  by 


224  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

a  necessity  as  unfailing  as  the  law  of  nature  which 
makes  the  greater  weight  draw  down  the  scale.  And 
if  there  is  a  lesson  which  history  teaches  more  glar- 
ingly than  another,  it  is  that  races  and  nations  have 
their  turns,  and  that  when  a  race's  "turn"  has  come, 
all  the  opposition  in  the  world  could  no  more  hinder 
it  from  taking  it  and  running  its  appointed  course, 
than  the  same  race  could  be  kept  alive  by  all  pos- 
sible propping  and  supporting  once  its  day  was  done 
and  its  possibilities  exhausted. 

2.  It  was  the  Eranians'  turn  now  in  Western  Asia. 
The  race  was  in  its  prime  of  vigor,  adventurous  reck- 
lessness, and  youthful  curiosity  to  see  and  take  more 
lands,  and  more  still.  Fresh  from  its  long  migra- 
tions, which  could  not  be  said  to  be  ended  even  yet, 
their  forward  push  was  irresistible  and  could  be  re- 
strained only  temporarily.  No  one  felt  this  better 
than  Nebuchadrezzar  of  Babylon,  the  far-seeing,  the 
wary,  who,  with  a  wisdom  born  of  age, — the  age 
of  his  race  rather  than  his  own,— forswore  the  de- 
lights of  conquest  for  its  own  sake,  drew  the  line  at 
invasion,  and  centred  all  his  care  on  the  consolida- 
tion of  the  empire  which  he  never  doubted  but  he 
would  transmit  to  a  long  line  of  descendants,  if  only 
he  could  guard  it  from  Media,  of  whose  eventual 
advance  he  felt  so  sure  that  he  spent  his  life  prepar- 
ing against  it.  Kyaxares  was  dead,  the  great  or- 
ganizer and  conqueror,  who,  though  by  no  means  the 
first  Median  king,  was  considered  by  posterity  the 
founder  of  the  monarchy.  His  son  and  successor, 
whom  the  Greeks  have  called  AsTYAGES, — we  find 
his  name  given  as  Ishtuvegu  on  cuneiform  monu- 


BABYLON    THE    GREAT.     .  225 

merits, — was  Nebuchadrezzar's  brother-in-law  and 
not  formidable  in  himself,  being  as  inferior  to  Kyax- 
ares,  as  great  men's  sons  usually  are  to  their  fathers; 
yet  the  Babylonian  never  relaxed  in  his  vigilance. 
Ever  alive  to  the  danger  from  the  north,  he  sought 
to  avert  it  by  works  of  fortification  on  a  gigantic 
scale,  and  skilfully  combined  them  with  works  of 
public  utility  and  adornment. 

3.  He  first  of  all  undertook  to  fortify  Sippar,  the 
most  northern  of  Babylonian  cities,  exposed  to  be- 
come a  dangerous  centre  of  operation  in  an  invader's 
hand,  and  did  so  in  a  way  which  at  the  same  time 
furthered  commerce  and  agriculture.  With  this  view 
he  not  only  had  the  half-choked-up  canals  of  ancient 
kings  cleaned  out  and  their  sluices  and  dams  repaired 
and  put  into  working  order,  but  created  a  new  sys- 
tem of  canals :  four  he  cut  across  land,  to  unite  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates,  each  wide  and  deep  enough 
to  carry  merchant  ships,  and  branching  into  a  net- 
work of  smaller  canals  and  ditches  for  irrigating  the 
fields.  In  order  fully  to  control  the  increased  mass 
of  waters  which  he  thus  obtained,  he  had  a  huge 
basin  or  reservoir  dug  out  near  Sippar,  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Euphrates,  some  thirty-five  miles  in  cir- 
cumference and  as  many  feet  deep,  *  provided,  of 
course,  with  an  elaborate  and  complete  set  of 
hydraulic  works,  to  fill  or  empty  it  as  needed.  To 
complete  the  subjection  of  the  mighty  river,  the 
course  of  its  bed  was  slightly  altered,  being  made  to 
wind  in  a  sinuous  line  by  means  of  excavations  made 

*  These  are  the  figures  given  by  Herodotus ;  they  are  more  mod- 
erate and  seem  more  probable  than  some  given  by  later  writers. 


226  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

at  some  distance  from  one  another.  This  broke 
the  force  of  the  current,  which  is  very  great  in  the 
high-water  season,  and  not  only  made  navigation 
up  the  stream  easier,  but  gave  fuller  control  of  the 
river,  when  a  great  part  of  its  waters  had  to  be 
diverted  into  the  basin  of  Sippar  in  times  of  inunda- 
tion. Thus,  by  the  same  act  which  remedied  the 
evils  of  spring  floods,  a  provision  of  water  was  laid 
up  for  distribution  in  times  of  drought.  So  admi- 
rably were  these  various  forces  calculated  and  bal- 
anced, and  so  perfectly  did  they  work  together,  that 
when  Nebuchadrezzar  built  his  celebrated  bridge 
across  the  Euphrates  in  Babylon,  he  could  empty 
the  bed  of  the  river,  so  as  to  allow  his  workmen  to 
construct  the  mighty  buttressed  piers  of  quarry 
stones  clamped  with  iron  and  soldered  with  molten 
lead,  and  to  line  the  banks  with  masonry  of  the 
best  kiln-burned  brick. 

4.  It  is  evident  that  these  waterworks — the  four 
canals  and  the  reservoir  at  Sippar — were  at  the  same 
time  part  of  a  very  efficient  system  of  defence  against 
possible  invasions  from  the  north.  Not  only  did 
they  present  obstacles  which  it  would  take  time  to 
overcome,  but  in  a  case  of  desperate  emergency 
whole  regions  could  be  flooded  and  thus  made  inac- 
cessible or  untenable.  But  even  this  did  not  seem  a 
sufficient  safeguard  to  the  king's  anxious  foresight. 
The  boundary  so  slightly  marked  by  the  alluvial 
line  *  had  never  been  much  respected,  and  he  deter- 
mined to  strengthen  it  by  the  more  tangible  addition 
of  a  wall,  which  he  built  across  the  valley,  from  river 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  I. 


BABYLON    THE    GREAT.  IT."] 

to  river,  somewhat  below  that  line,  but  above  that 
formed  by  the  canals  and  the  now  well  fortified  city 
of  Sippar.  A  wall — childish  as  the  contrivance  may 
appear  in  our  time  of  scientific  warfare — was  no 
mean  defence,  if  sufificiently  strong  and  properly 
manned,  before  the  days  of  artillery;  and  several 
centuries  later  we  see  the  Romans,  the  finest  strate- 
gists of  antiquity,  build  walls  across  the  narrow  part 
of  Britain  as  a  defence  against  the  inroads  of  the 
northern  tribes.  This  of  Nebuchadrezzar's  was 
built  entirely  of  burned  brick  held  together  by 
asphalt  cement  ;  and  Xenophon,  who  saw  some  por- 
tions of  it  standing  still  and  calls  it  the  "  Median 
Wall,"  values  its  height  at  a  hundred  feet,  its  thick- 
ness at  twenty. 

5.  In  all  Nebuchadrezzar's  inscriptions  that  have 
been  found — and  we  have  a  great  many — he  espe- 
cially glories  in  his  constructions.  He  seems  to  have 
repaired  almost  every  great  temple  in  the  land  and 
built  not  a  few  new^  ones.  From  the  detailed  account 
he  gives  of  the  condition  in  which  he  found  the 
"Temple  of  the  Seven  Spheres"  at  Borsip  and  of 
the  work  he  did  there,  it  is  evident  that  he  considers 
the  completion  and  adornment  of  this  his  patron's 
Ziggurat  and  shrine  (temple  of  Nebo)  as  one  of  his 
best  claims  to  fame  and  the  favor  of  the  gods.*  But 
what  he  did  at  Babylon  not  only  surpasses  all  his 
other  works,  but  eclipses  those  of  all  former  kings, 
even  those  of  Sargon  at  Dur-Sharrukin,  not  so  much 
in  splendor  as  in  the  vastness  and  originality  of  his 
conceptions, — an   originality   due   probably  to  that 

*  See  "Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  72,  pp.  280-283,  and  p.  293. 


228  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

besetting  idea  of  coupling  adornment  with  military 
requirements,  which  consistently  underlies  most  of 
the  public  works  he  undertook.  In  this,  however, 
he  appears  to  have  followed  a  line  traced  out  first  by 
his  father.  Of  some  of  his  greatest  constructions, — 
such  as  the  new  palace,  the  great  city  walls,  and  the 
embankments  of  the  Euphrates, — he  especially  men- 
tions that  they  were  begun  by  Nabopolassar,  but 
left  unfinished  at  his  death.  Babylon,  sacked  once 
by  Sennacherib,  then  rebuilt  by  Esarhaddon,  had 
gone  through  a  conflagration  when  besieged  and 
taken  by  Asshurbanipal,  and  must  have  been  in  a  sad 
condition  when  the  Chaldean  usurper  made  it  once 
more  the  seat  of  empire.  Hence,  perhaps,  the 
thought  of  reconstructing  it  in  such  a  manner  as 
would  make  it  a  capital  not  only  in  size  and  mag- 
nificence, but  in  strength  :  it  was  to  be  at  once  the 
queen  of  cities  and  the  most  impregnable  of  fortresses. 
6.  The  last  time  that  Babylon  had  been  taken  it 
had  been  reduced  by  famine.*  This  was  the  first 
contingency  to  be  guarded  against.  For  this  pur- 
pose the  city  was  to  be  protected  by  a  double  en- 
closure of  mighty  walls,  the  inner  one  skirting  its 
outlines  narrowly,  while  the  outer  was  moved  to  such 
a  distance  as  to  enfold  a  large  portion  of  the  land, 
which  was  to  be  cultivated  so  that  the  capital  could 
raise  enough  grain  and  fodder  for  its  own  consump- 
tion. This  vast  space  also  would  serve  to  shelter  the 
population  of  the  surrounding  villages  in  case  of  an 
invasion.  It  has  not  been  possible  to  trace  the  line  of 
this  outer  wall,  which  received  the  name  of  NlMlT- 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  396. 


BABYLON  THE    GREAT.  229 

TI-Bel,  nor  consequently  to  determine  how  many 
square  miles  it  protected,  and  the  reports  of  ancient 
writers  are  somewhat  conflicting,  as  none  of  them,  of 
course,  took  exact  scientific  measurements  after  the 
manner  of  our  modern  surveyors.  Herodotus  gives 
the  circumference  as  somewhat  over  fifty  English 
miles.  A  large  figure  certainly.  But  it  has  been  ob- 
served that  it  scarcely  surpasses  that  yielded  by  the 
circumvallation  of  Paris  ;  and  besides  the  arable  and 
pasture  land,  it  must  have  embraced  suburbs,  not 
impossibly  Borsip  itself,  which  was  also  well  fortified 
at  the  same  time.  This  is  the  highest  estimate. 
The  lowest  (and  later)  gives  forty  miles.  The  Ni- 
mitti-Bel  rampart  was  protected  on  the  outside  by  a 
wide  and  deep  moat,  which  at  the  same  time  had 
supplied  the  material  for  the  wall.  In  mentioning 
it  Herodotus  stops  to  give  a  very  faithful  and  vivid 
account  of  the  local  mode  of  construction,  now  so 
familiar  to  us,  but  which,  when  described  to  him, 
seems  to  have  considerably  astonished  him  : 

' '  And  here  I  may  not  onait  to  tell  the  use  to  which  the  mould  dug  out 
of  the  great  moat  was  turned,  nor  the  manner  wherein  the  wall  was 
wrought.  As  fast  as  they  dug  the  moat,  the  soil  which  they  got  from 
the  cutting  was  made  into  bricks,  and  when  a  sufficient  number  were 
completed,  they  baked  the  bricks  in  kilns.  Then  they  set  to  build- 
ing and  began  with  bricking  the  borders  of  the  moat,  after  which 
they  proceeded  to  construct  the  wall  itself,  using  throughout  for  their 
cement  hot  bitumen,  and  interposing  a  layer  of  wattled  reeds  at  every 
thirtieth  course  of  the  bricks." 

The  reports  about  the  height  and  thickness  of  this 
celebrated  wall  vary  still  more  considerably.  Herodo- 
tus says  it  was  350  feet  high  *  (apparently  includ- 

*  Calculation  of  Mr.  J.  Oppert  ("Athenaeum  Franjais,"  1850,  p. 
370). 


230  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

ing  the  height  of  the  towers,  which  were  built  at 
regular  intervals  on  the  top  of  it),  with  a  thickness 
of  75  feet.  Now  no  efTort  of  imagination,  even  with 
the  knowledge  that  the  walls  of  Babylon  were  num- 
bered among  the  "  Seven  Wonders  of  the  World," 
can  well  make  us  realize  a  city  wall,  nigh  on  fifty 
miles  long,  surpassing  in  height  the  extreme  height 
of  St.  Paul's  of  London.*  The  estimates  of  various 
later  writers  range  all  the  way  between  that  exorbi- 
tant figure  and  that  of  75  feet, — very  possibly  too 
moderate.  For  the  fact  remains  undisputed  that  the 
Nimitti-Bcl  rampart  was  stupendous  both  in  height 
and  in  thickness;  that  towers  were  built  on  the  top 
of  it,  on  the  edges,  two  facing  each  other,  and  that 
there  remained  room  between  for  a  four-horsed 
chariot  to  turn.  And  the  contemporary  Hebrew 
prophet,  Jeremiah,  speaks  of  Babylon  as  "  mounting 
up  to  heaven,"  of  "  the  broad  walls  of  Babylon  "  and 
her  "  high  gates."  Of  these  there  were  a  hundred  in 
the  circuit  of  the  wall,  according  to  Herodotus, 
"  and  they  were  all  of  brass,  with  brazen  lintels  and 
side-posts."  f 

7.  This  outer  wall  Herodotus  calls  "  the  main  de- 
fence of  the  city."  The  second  or  inner  wall,  named 
Imgur-Bel,  he  described  as  being  "of  less  thickness 
than  the  first,  but  very  little  inferior  to  it  in  strength." 
Then  there  were  the  walls  which  enclosed  the  two 
royal  palaces,  the  old  one  on  the  right  bank  of  the 

*  See  Geo.  Rawlinson's  "  Herodotus  "  (third  edition,  1875),  vo'l.  I., 
p.  299,  note  9. 

\  Probably  cased  with  worked  brass,  like  the  gate  of  Balawat.  See 
"  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  190  and  ill.  No.   34. 


BABYLON  THE    GREAT.  23 1 

Euphrates,  and  the  new  one  on  the  left, — and  made 
of  each  a  respectable  fortress  ;  for  it  was  part  of  the 
plan  of  reconstruction  that  the  city  should  be  ex- 
tended across  the  river,  to  gain  a  firmer  seat  and  full 
control  of  this  all-important  thoroughfare ;  and  an 
entire  new  quarter  was  built  on  the  left  bank  around 
the  new  and  magnificent  palace.  And  as  it  was  de- 
sirable, both  for  convenience  and  defence,  that  the 
two  sides  should  be  united  by  permanent  means  of 
communication,  Nebuchadrezzar  built  the  great 
bridge  mentioned  above  (p.  226),  but  so  that  it  could 
be  kept  open  or  shut  off  at  will,  as  a  further  safe- 
guard against  surprises.  This  was  effected  by  means 
of  platforms  made  of  beams  and  planks,  which  were 
laid  from  pier  to  pier  in  the  daytime,  and  removed 
for  the  night.  Of  course  one  solitary  bridge  could 
not  sufifice  for  the  trafific  of  a  population  which  can- 
not have  been  under  half  a  million,  and  the  river 
was  gay  with  hundreds  of  boats  and  barges  darting 
with  their  load  of  passengers  from  bank  to  bank,  or 
gliding  down  the  current,  or  working  against  it. 
There  were  many  landing-places,  but  no  quays  or 
broad  paved  walks  bordered  with  handsome  build- 
ings, such  as  in  our  ideas  appear  as  the  necessary  ac- 
companiment of  a  beautiful  river  in  a  great  city. 
The  Euphrates  flowed  along  imprisoned  between  a 
double  wall,  of  burnt  brick  like  the  others,  which  fol- 
lowed its  course  on  either  bank  and  close  to  the 
edge  from  end  to  end  of  the  city.  Only  where  the 
streets  abutted  on  the  river — and  these  were  disposed 
at  regular  intervals,  in  straight  lines  and  at  right  an- 
gles— there  were  low  gates  to  allow  pedestrians  to 


232 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 


descend  to  the  landing-places.     The  general  effect 
must  have  been  peculiar  and  rather  gloomy. 

8.  The  site  of  Nebuchadrezzar's  own  palace — the 
"  new  palace  " — has  been  fully  identified;  it  is  the 
mound  known  as  the  Kasr,  one  of  the  first  explored, 
and  which  drew  travellers'  attention  by  its  excep- 
tionally   handsome,    neatly    moulded    and    stamped 


"TWH 


Sfc 


34.    BRICK  OF   NEBUCHADREZZAR. 
(One  foot  square  ;  thickness,  3  inches.) 

bricks,  as  well  as  by  the  cement  which  joined  them, 
and  which  is  considered  the  finest  in  the  world,  not 
excepting  the  best  that  England  produces  in  our 
day.  What  best  served  the  purpose  of  identification 
was  the  accumulation  in  the  rubbish  of  countless 
fragments  of  painted  and  glazed  tiles,  showing  por- 
tions of    figures,  human  and    animal ;  here  a  lion's 


BABYLON  THE    GREAT.  233 

paw,  there  a  horse's  hoof,  there  again  a  bit  of  curly- 
beard  or  filleted  hair.  As  we  are  told  by  ancient 
writers  that  the  outer  walls  of  the  palace  were 
adorned  with  hunting  scenes  in  many  colors,  the  in- 
ference was  not  difficult  to  draw.  Some  of  these 
fragments  are  large  enough  to  show  the  number  near 
the  top  and  part  of  the  inscription — white,  on  blue 
ground.  The  Jewish  historian,  JOSEPHUS,  who  lived 
in  the  first  century  A.D.,  has  a  short  memorandum 
to  the  effect  that  "  the  palace  was  built  in  fifteen 
days,"  a  statement  which  appeared  so  palpable  an  ex- 
aggeration that  not  much  attention  was  ever  paid  to 
it.  What,  then,  was  the  amazement  of  the  decipher- 
ers when  on  a  cylinder  of  Nebuchadrezzar,  now  in 
London,  they  read  these  words  :  '' In  fifteen  days  I 
completed  the  splendid  zuorky  Even  supposing  all 
the  materials  to  have  been  brought  together,  all  the 
art  work  to  have  been  done  beforehand,  and  only 
placed  and  put  together  in  this  space  of  time,  what 
a  command  of  human  labor  does  not  such  a  state- 
ment represent  ! 

9.  The  most  characteristic  of  Babylonian  mounds, 
from  its  well-defined  flat-topped  outline,  is  also  the 
only  one  that  has  retained  the  old  name,  and  is  still 
known  as  Babil.*  For  a  long  time  it  was  supposed 
to  be  the  Ziggurat  of  the  celebrated  temple  of  Bel- 
Marduk,  although  oriented,  contrary  to  custom,  with 
its  sides  to  the  cardinal  points,  not  with  its  angles.f 
But  the  researches  undertaken  by  Mr.  H.  Rassam  a 
few  years  ago  (1883-84),  with  such  rich  and  varied  re- 
sults, have  somewhat  shaken  that  belief :  he  thinks 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  ill.  4.  f  Ibid.,  pp.  2S4  ff. 


234  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

that  the  constructions  entombed  in  this  mound  were 
of  a  very  different  nature.  Sloping  towards  the  river 
and  on  two  sides,  while  the  back  presented  a  per- 
pendicular wall,  probably  not  much  lower  than  that 
of  the  city,  this  mass  of  solid  brick  masonry,  accord- 
ing to  him,  represents  one  of  the  few  truly  poetical 
creations  of  the  age  ;  poetical  alike  in  its  nature 
and  in  the  circumstances  which  gave  rise  to  it — the 
famous  Hanging  Gardens."  It  is  said  that  Nebu- 
chadrezzar's Median  queen,  Amytis,f  pined  for  the 
mountains  of  her  native  land,  with  their  cool  shades 
and  verdant  bowers,  in  the  wearisome  flatness  and 
prostrating  sultriness  of  the  Chaldean  lowlands ; 
whereupon  her  royal  lord,  with  a  chivalrous  gallantry 
that  would  have  done  honor  to  a  far  later  time,  or- 
dered the  construction  of  an  artificial  hill,  disposed 
in  terraces,  which,  being  covered  with  a  layer  of 
earth,  were  planted  with  the  handsomest  trees, 
amidst  which,  on  the  topmost  terrace,  a  villa-like 
residence  was  erected  for  the  queen,  where  she 
could  enjoy,  not  only  purer  air  and  pleasant  shades, 
but  a  vast  and  beautiful  prospect.  If  this  pretty 
legend  be  true — and  why  should  we  deny  ourselves 
the  pleasure  of  believing  it,  since  there  is  nothing 
to  disprove  it? — the  woman  so  loved  might  well  feel 
compensated  even  for  the  loss  of  her  native  scenery 
in  the  Zagros  wilds,  for  which,  of  course,  her  terraced 
bower,  some  500  feet  square,  could  be  but  a  poor 
substitute. 

*See  Kaulen,  "  Assyrien  und  Babylonien,"  p.  76. 

f  A  daughter  of  the  great  Kyaxares.     See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p. 

-)28. 


236  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

10.  Yet,  poor  as  it  may  have  been  when  compared 
to  nature's  own  mountain  architecture,  as  a  piece  of 
human  art  it  was  a  marvel  which  the  Greeks  thought 
worthy  of  a  place  among  their  "  Seven  Wonders," 
along  with  the  walls  of  Babylon,  the  temple  of  Bel, 
that  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus,  and  a  few  other  monu- 
ments. The  terraces  are  described  by  Greek  and 
Roman  writers  to  have  been  borne  on  arched  vaults 
supported  by  pillars,  all  of  well  cemented  bricks. 
On  the  topmost  terrace  was  the  pump-house,  with 
the  hydraulic  machinery  for  raising  the  water  through 
pipes  from  the  Euphrates,  or  rather,  from  canals 
which  brought  the  water  within  easy  reach,  and  so 
that  the  contrivance  should  not  be  noticed  from  the 
outside.  Mr.  Rassam  found  some  of  the  pipes,  cut 
through  limestone,  and  having  cleared  one  of  the 
rubbish  that  choked  it,  actually  came  upon  water 
which  still  partly  filled  it.  It  is  said  that  the  earth' 
was  carted  up  in  loads  and  spread  out  on  a  layer  of 
plates  of  lead,  for  the  protection  of  the  masonry 
from  the  destructive  action  of  the  moisture  which 
had  to  be  kept  up  around  the  roots  of  the  trees. 
The  terraces  were  four  in  number,  the  pillars  sixty 
feet  apart,  and  twenty-two  feet  in  circumference,  as 
could  be  verified  from  the  remains.  On  the  whole, 
this  Paradeisos,  as  the  Greeks  called  it,  disposed 
somewhat  on  the  principle  of  the  Ziggurat,  was  not 
an  innovation,  and  we  have  seen  in  a  preceding  vol- 
ume that  similar  constructions — terraces  upon  arches, 
bearing  groves  or  gardens  and  forming  artificially 
watered  slopes — have  been  portrayed  long  before 
Nebuchadrezzar    on   Assyrian  wall-sculptures,    the 


< 

a 

2    S 


O    c 


238  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

type  of  both  Ziggurat  and  hanging  gardens  having 
been  carried  north  in  remote  antiquity  from  Chaldca 
where,  beyond  doubt,  it  originated,  and  was  closely 
connected  with  the  religious  traditions  of  the  Holy 
Mountain  and  Sacred  Tree.* 

II.  If  the  mound  of  Babil  has  been  correctly- 
identified  as  the  site  of  the  hanging  gardens,  that 
of  the  great  temple  of  Bel-Marduk  will  have,  until 
further  discoveries,  to  remain  doubtful.  Both  tem- 
ple and  Ziggurat,  the  latter  with  a  chapel  on  the 
top  stage,  are  thus  described  by  Herodotus  : 

"  The  sacred  precinct  was  a  square  enclosure  two  stadia  (1200 
feet)  each  way,  with  gates  of  solid  brass,  which  was  also  remaining 
in  my  time.  In  the  middle  of  the  precinct  there  was  a  tower  of 
solid  masonry,  a  stadion  (600  feet)  in  length  and  breadth,  upon 
which  was  raised  a  second  tower,  and  on  that  a  third,  and  so  on  up 
to  eight.  The  ascent  to  the  top  is  on  the  outside,  by  a  path  which 
winds  round  all  the  towers. •)•  When  one  is  about  half-way  up,  one 
finds  a  resting-place  and  seats,  where  persons  are  wont  to  sit  some 
time  on  their  way  to  the  summit.  On  the  topmost  tower  there  is  a 
spacious  temple,  and  inside  the  temple  stands  a  couch  of  unusual 
size,  richly  adorned,  with  a  golden  table  by  its  side.  .  .  .  They 
declare — but  I  for  my  part  do  not  credit  it — that  the  god  comes 
down  in  person  into  this  chamber,  and  sleeps  on  the  couch.  .  .  . 
In  the  same  precinct  there  is  another  temple,  in  which  is  a  sitting 
figure  of  Zeus  "  (i.  e.,  Bel-Marduk),  "  all  of  gold.  Before  the  fig- 
ure stands  a  large  golden  table  ;  and  the  throne  whereupon  it  sits, 
and  the  base  on  which  the  throne  is  placed,  are  likewise  of  gold. 
Outside  the  temple  are  two  altars,  one  of  solid  gold,  on 
which  it  is  lawful  to  offer  only  sucklings  ;  the  other  a  common  altar, 
but  of  great  size,  on  which  the  full-grown  animals  are  sacrificed.  It 
is  also  on  this  great  altar  that  the  Chaldeans  burn  the  frankincense, 
which  is  offered  every  year  at  the  festival  of  the  god.      .     .     ." 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  274-280,  and  ill.  68. 
\  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  ill.  70,  "Ziggurat  Restored." 


BABYLON  THE   GREAT.    .  239 

Four  hundred  years  later  the  great  temple  was 
only  a  memory.  "  In  the  middle  of  the  city,"  the 
historian,  Diodorus  of  Sicily,  reports,*  "  used  to 
stand  the  sanctuary  of  Bel.  As  different  writers 
have  said  different  things  about  it,  and  the  building 
itself  has  broken  down  with  age,  nothing  certain  can 
be  found  out  concerning  it.  On  one  thing,  however, 
all  agree:  that  it  was  of  stupendous  height,  and  that 
the  Chaldeans  used  to  take  astronomical  observa- 
tions from  the  top  of  it,  as  the  height  of  the  structure 
made  it  convenient  for  them  to  observe  the  rising 
and  setting  of  the  stars."  Alexander  of  Macedon, 
who  lived  only  one  hundred  years  after  Herodotus, 
already  found  the  temple  a  ruin.  We  are  told  that 
he  intended  to  repair  and  rebuild  it,  but  could  not 
spare  the  time  and  the  labor  on  the  work,  as  the  re- 
moval of  the  rubbish  would  alone  have  employed 
10,000  men  during  two  months.  And  besides,  the 
young  conqueror  died  before  he  could  accomplish 
even  so  much.  It  was  thus  that  all  these  costly  and 
stupendous,  but  unwieldy  and  perishable  structures 
collapsed  and  literally  crumbled  to  dust  and  rubbish 
the  moment  they  were  left  to  themselves,  even  when 
the  work  of  destruction  was  not  accomplished  or 
helped  by  the  hand  of  man — as  was  too  often  the 
case  in  these  countries,  exposed  as  they  were  to  con- 
tinual invasions  and  change  of  masters.  The  wonder 
is  that  Herodotus  should  have  found  Babylon  still 
so  much  the  city  that  Nebuchadrezzar  left  it,  for,  in 
the   hundred    years   that    separated    him   from   that 

*  Herodotus  died  about  425  B.C.,  and  Diodorus  was  a  coRtemporary 
of  Julius  Caesar  and  of  Augustus. 


240  MEDIA,    BABYLON.   AND   PERSIA. 

monarch,  the  great  capital  had  been  taken  thrice  by- 
force  of  arms,  once  after  a  long  siege. 

12.  It  is  curious  that  the  works  which  we  know  to 
have  been  carried  out  by  Nebuchadrezzar  should 
have  been  credited  by  the  Greeks  of  almost  the  next 
generation  not  to  him,  but  to  two  queens,  one  of 
them  entirely  fabulous,  even  mythical,  and  the  other, 
if  not  exactly  unreal,  still  more  or  less  apocryphal. 
The  legend  of  Semiramis  (see  "Story  of  Assyria," 
p.  198)  ascribes  to  her  the  building  of  Babylon  gen- 
erally, the  construction  of  the  hanging  gardens,  the 
great  walls,  the  temple  of  Bel,  and  the  bridge.  He- 
rodotus, on  the  other  hand  (Book  I.,  184-186),  claims 
the  latter,  as  well  as  the  basin  at  Sippar,  and  the 
turning  of  the  Euphrates,  for  a  certain  queen, 
NiTOKRIS,  of  whom  contemporary  records  know 
nothing  whatever.  This  perversion  of  history  is  the 
more  to  be  wondered  at,  that  there  certainly  was 
intercourse  between  Babylon  and  Greece  at  the 
time,  since  we  know  of  Greek  volunteers  serving  in 
Nebuchadrezzar's  army,  and  among  these  of  at  least 
one  illustrious  name — a  brother  of  the  poet  Alkman. 

13.  The  pride  which  Nebuchadrezzar  took  in  the 
city  wellnigh  created  by  him,  has  become  proverbial 
from  the  celebrated  passage  in  which  the  prophet 
Daniel  presents  the  lifelike  picture  of  the  king  walk- 
ing upon  the  terraces  of  his  palace,  surveying  the 
unspeakably  gorgeous  prospect  around  him  and  at 
his  feet,  and  exclaiming  :  "  Is  not  this  great  Babylon, 
which  I  have  built  for  the  royal  dwelling-place,  by 
the  might  of  my  power,  and  for  the  glory  of  my 
majesty?"     How  well  these  words,  reported  by  the 


BAB  YLON  THE   GREA  T.    .  24.I 

Hebrew  eye-witness,  accord  with  the  tenor  of  certain 
passages  in  the  great  king's  inscriptions.  "...  For 
the  astonishment  of  men  I  built  this  house  ;  awe  of 
the  power  of  my  majesty  encompasses  its  walls.  .  .  . 
The  temples  of  the  great  gods  I  made  brilliant  as  the 
sun,  shining  as  the  day.  ...  In  Babylon  alone  I 
raised  the  seat  of  my  dominion,  in  no  other  city." 
This  excessive  pride  in  his  works  is  betrayed  in  all 
his  inscriptions,  which,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
strangely  silent  about  his  wars  and  victories,  and  we 
would  not  know  that  he  had  reduced  many  Arabian 
peoples  to  submission  but  for  some  vague  passages 
in  the  book  of  Jeremiah.  It  is  obvious,  however, 
that  the  main  feature  of  this  great  monarch's  reign 
is  his  admirable  home-rule.  When  to  his  vast  system 
of  fortifications  and  irrigation  in  the  north  we  add 
the  improvement  and  regulation  of  the  drainage  of 
the  Chaldean  marshes  by  the  mouth  of  the  rivers, 
the  foundation  of  a  commercial  city  with  harbor — 
Teredon  or  TiRIDOTIS — at  that  of  the  Euphrates, 
and  of  a  colony,  Gerrha,  on  the  Arabian  coast  of 
the  gulf,  we  shall  see  that  he  did  as  much  for  trade 
as  for  agriculture,  national  defence,  and  the  adorn- 
ment of  his  cities,  opening  a  most  convenient  thor- 
oughfare by  water,  for  the  transport  of  wares  from 
Arabia  and  India  all'  the  way  up  the  Euphrates  to 
Karkhemish.  The  restoration  of  the  Chaldean  mon- 
archy in  more  than  its  ancient  glory — that  dream  of 
national  revival  and  greatness  which  the  princes  of 
Kaldu  had  pursued,  openly  or  in  secret,  through 
more  than  three  centuries,*  for  which  Merodach- 
*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp,  170-174. 


242  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

Baladan  and  his  heroic  house  of  Bit-Yakin  had 
plotted  and  fought,  suffered  and  died,*  had  at  length 
become  a  reality.  And  if  the  glory  was  fleeting,  the 
empire  short-lived,  it  was  because  one  man,  however 
great  his  genius  and  power,  cannot  stay  or  turn  the 
current  of  historical  law.  Nebuchadrezzar  and  his 
people  belonged  to  a  race  whose  day  of  leadership 
was  done,  and  when  he  died,  things  resumed  their 
course  on  the  incline  down  which  they  were  drawn 
by  natural  gravitation. 

14.  Babylon,  like  the  great  cities  of  Assyria,  has 
survived  only  in  the  ruins  of  her  principal  public  or 
royal  buildings.  Of  her  streets,  squares,  private 
dwellings,  we  vainly  seek  a  trace.  We  only  know 
from  Herodotus  that  the  streets  all  ran  in  straight 
lines,  not  only  those  parallel  to  the  rivers,  but  also 
the  "  cross  streets  which  lead  down  to  the  water- 
side," where  they  ended  in  the  low  gate  already 
mentioned  (see  p.  231).  The  same  traveller  describes 
the  houses  as  being  mostly  three  or  four  stories 
high.  It  is  probable  that  our  curiosity  on  many 
points  will  never  be  satisfied,  and  until  quite  lately 
we  knew  scarcely  more  of  the  Babylonians'  private 
life  than  of  that  of  their  northern  neighbors.  In 
fact,  for  a  long  time  we  had  to  be  content  with 
scraps  of  information  from  Greek  sources,  like  the 
following,  also  from  Herodotus  : 

"  The  dress  of  the  Babylonians  is  a  linen  tunic  reaching  to  the  feet, 
and  above  it  another  tunic  made  of  wool,  besides  which  they  have  a 
short   white   cloak   thrown    around    them,   and   shoes   of  a  peculiar 

*  See  "Story  of  Assyria,"  reigns  of  Tiglath  Pileser  II.  and  the 
Sargonides. 


BABYLON  THE   GREAT.  243 

fashion.  .  .  .  They  have  long  hair,  wear  turbans,  and  anoint  their 
whole  body  with  perfumes.  Every  one  carries  a  seal,  and  a  walk- 
ing-stick, carved  at  the  top  into  the  form  of  an  apple,  a  rose,  a  lily, 
an  eagle,  for  it  is  not  their  habit  to  use  a  stick  without  an  orna- 
ment." 

This  description,  superficial  as  it  is,  and  bearinj^ 
on  the  merely  outer  traits  which  would  naturally 
strike  a  foreigner,  contains  two  details  which  guaran- 
tee its  faithfulness,  being  amply  corroborated  by 
modern  discoveries  ;  in  the  seals  which  every  one 
carries,  we  recognize  the  familiar  seal-cylinders,  the 
general  use  of  which  accounts  for  the  enormous 
number  of  specimens  which  has  been  found,  amount- 
ing to  several  thousands,  scattered  in  various  collec- 
tions, public  and  private,  that  of  the  British  Mu- 
seum alone  counting  over  six  hundred.  As  to  the 
ornamental  knobs  of  the  walking-sticks,  such  arti- 
cles are  often  found  in  the  ruins,  and  are  thought 
to  have  served  for  the  very  purpose  mentioned  by 
Herodotus.  He  also  notes  some  of  the  more  re- 
markable customs  of  those  which  would  be  sure  to 
strike  a  traveller  or  be  pointed  out  to  him,  even 
without  his  knowing  a  word  of  the  language.  -  Such 
is  the  custom  of  laying  people  in  the  street  when 
they  were  v^ry  ill,  for  the  passers-by  to  advise  them 
on  their  case*;  also  that  of  holding  a  matrimonial 
auction  once  a  year, — a  sort  of  fair,  at  which,  mar- 
riageable girls  being  collected  in  one  place,  the  men 
assembled  to  inspect  them,  forming  a  circle  around 
them.f     Then  a  herald  or  public  crier  called  their 

*  For  the  meaning  and  origin  of  this  custom  see  "  Story  of  Chal- 
dea,"  p.  163. 

•j-  Herodotus  says  "  all  the  marriageable  girls,"  and  makes  the  cus- 


244  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

names  and  offered  them  for  sale,  one  by  one,  to  the 
highest  bidder.  The  most  beautiful  came  first,  as 
they,  of  course,  fetched  the  highest  prices.  When 
all  the  pretty  girls  were  disposed  of,  the  plain  ones 
had  their  turn,  but  for  them  the  proceeding  was 
reversed,  marriage  portions  being  offered  with  them. 
The  herald  began  with  the  most  homely  one,  asking 
who  would  take  her  with  the  smallest  dowry.  She 
was  knocked  down  to  the  man  who  contented  him- 
self with  the  lowest  sum.  The  marriage-portions 
were  furnished  out  of  the  money  paid  for  the  beau- 
tiful damsels,  and  thus  "  the  fairer  maidens  por- 
tioned out  the  uglier,"  remarks  Herodotus,  who 
thinks  the  whole  arrangement  a  wise  and  admirable 
one. 

15.  It  is  but  lately  that  our  materials  for  a  knowl- 
edge of  Babylonian  life,  manners,  and  customs  have 
received  an  important  and  unlooked  for  addition.  In 
a  field  of  research  where  so  much  is  due  to  chance, 
and  where  every  great  success  is  a  piece  of  luck  and 
a  surprise,  not  the  least  of  these  was  the  discovery  of 
the  secret  archive  of  a  family  which  has  been  called 
THE  Banking  House  of  Egibi.  Already  in  1874 
some  Arab  diggers  disinterred  from  a  "large  mound 
known  under  the  name  of  DjUMDjUMA  several  well- 
preserved  terra-cotta  jars,  packed  full  of  small  tab- 

tom  universal.  It  was  most  certainly  not  so,  as  proved  by  the  vast 
number  of  documents  on  private  life,  of  which  an  account  follows 
further  on.  Still,  as  later  writers  mention  it,  it  may  have  existed 
as  a  local  survival  from  barbarous  antiquity,  piously  preserved  by 
some  of  those  worshippers  of  "  the  good  old  times,"  who  are  a  stand- 
ing feature  of  all  ages  and  countries, 


BAB  YLON  THE   GREA  T.  245 

lets  covered  with  writing.  They  had  learned  by 
this  time  the  value  of  such  ''  finds,"  and  carried  the 
jars  to  a  dealer  in  Baghdad,  from  whom  George 
Smith  bought  them  for  the  British  Museum,  though 
far  from  suspecting  what  treasure  he  had  stumbled 
on.  The  tablets  were  about  three  thousand  in  num- 
ber, varying  in  size  from  one  square  inch  to  twelve. 
It  was  found  on  examination  that  they  were  docu- 
ments recording  all  sorts  of  commercial  and  pecuniary 
transactions,  and  bearing  the  names  of  the  contract- 
ing parties  and  of  witnesses.  Among  these  names, 
either  as  principal  or  witness — more  often  the  for- 
mer,— always  figured  the  name  of  some  son,  or  grand- 
son, or  descendant  of  a  certain  Egibi,  evidently  the 
founder  of  a  firm  possessed  of  immense  wealth  and 
influence,  and  which,  through  many  generations, 
indeed  several  centuries,  transacted  money  affairs 
of  every  sort  and  magnitude,  from  the  loan  of  a  few 
niancJis  to  that  of  many  talents,  from  witnessing  a 
private  will  or  a  contract  of  sale  or  partnership 
between  modest  citizens  of  Babylon  or  some  neigh- 
boring city,  to  the  collecting  of  taxes  from  whole 
provinces  farmed  to  the  house  by  the  government. 
As  these  documents,  which  come  under  the  class 
known  as  "  contract  tablets,"  are  carefully  dated, 
giving  the  day  and  month,  and  the  year  of  the 
reigning  king,  it  has  been  found  possible  to  make 
out  a  genealogical  table  of  the  firm,*  the  head  of 
which,  it  appears,  generally  took  his  sons  into  part- 
nership in  his  own  lifetime.     This  table  shows  that 

♦See  paper  by  Mr.  S.  Chad  Boscawen,  "Transactions  of  the  So- 
ciety of  Biblical  Archceology,  vol.  VI.,  1878. 


246  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

the  founder,  Egibi,  "  was  probably  at  the  head  of 
the  house  in  the  reign  of  Sennacherib,  about  685 
B.C."  Professor  Friedrich  DeHtzsch  has  quite  lately 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  name  Egibi  is  the 
equivalent  to  the  Hebrew  Yakub  (Jacob),*  from 
which  fact  he  infers  that  the  great  banker  must 
have  been  a  Jew,  probably  of  those  carried  into  cap- 
tivity by  Sargon  out  of  Samaria. f  He  remarks, 
that  many  of  the  tablets  bear  unmistakably  Jewish 
names,  and  thinks  they  will  yet  shed  many  a  light 
on  the  life  and  doings  of  the  Hebrew  exiles  in  Baby- 
lon and  other  Chaldean  cities.  If  this  philological 
point  is  established,  it  would  be  curious  to  note  at 
how  early  a  date  the  blessing  uttered  on  the  race  in 
Deuteronomy  (xxviii.,  12):  "Thou  shalt  lend  unto 
many  nations  and  thou  shalt  not  borrow,"  began  to 
take  effect. 

16.  However  that  may  be,  the  firm  of  "  Egibi  and 
Sons"  had  reached  its  climax  of  wealth  and  power 
under  Nebuchadrezzar,  a  century  after  its  founda- 
tion, having  weathered  the  storms  of  the  two  sieges, 
under  Sennacherib  and  Asshurbanipal,  as  they  were 
to  pass  unscathed  through  several  more  similar  po- 
litical crises,  protected  by  their  exceptional  position, 
which  made  them  too  useful,  indeed  too  necessary,  to 
be  injured.  "  All  the  financial  business  of  the  court," 
Professor  Fr.  Delitzsch  tells  us, "  was  entrusted  to  this 
firm  through  several  centuries.  They  collected  the 
taxes  with  which  land,  and  the  crops  of  corn,  dates, 

*  See  article  "  Gefangenschaft,"  in  the  Calwer  Bibel-Lexikon  ; 
also,  ZeitschriftfurKeilschriftforschungioT  1885,  pp.  168,  169. 
f  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  247, 


BABYLON  THE    GREAT.  247 

etc.,  were  burdened,  also  the  dues  for  the  use  of  the 
public  roads  and  the  irrigation  canals,  etc.,  etc. 
Thus,  these  insignificant-looking  little  cakes  of  clay 
unrol  before  us  a  vivid  picture  of  Babylon's  national 
life ;  we  see  people  of  all  classes,  from  the  highest 
court-ofificer  to  the  lowest  peasant  and  slave,  crowd 
the  courts  of  this  treasure-house  to  transact  their 
business."  At  first  (in  1878),  it  was  thought  that  the 
palmy  days  of  the  firm  extended  only  to  the  reign 
of  the  Persian  king,  Dareios  Hystaspis,  and  the 
genealogical  table  (see  p.  245)  went  no  further  than 
a  certain  Marduk-nazir-pal,  who  appears  in  the 
first  year  of  that  king,  and  continues  to  act  until  his 
thirty-fifth  year.  But  Professor  Delitzsch  informs 
us  (in  1882),  that  Mr.  H.  Rassam  added  several  hun- 
dred tablets  to  the  batch  first  purchased,  and  that, 
among  these,  there  are  some  dated  from  the  reign 
of  King  Jilik-sa-an-dir,  i.  e.,  Alexander  the  Great. 
This  would  give  these  Babylonian  Rothschilds  a 
known  and  provable  duration  of  very  nearly  four 
centuries. 

17.  If  there  should  ever  arise  among  Assyriologists 
a  scholar  gifted  with  imaginative  power  and  literary 
talent, — like  Georg  Ebers,  the  pride  of  Egyptology, 
— such  a  scholar  will  find  ample  material  for  histori- 
cal romances  of  real  value  in  the  materials  extracted 
from  the  jar-safes  of  the  House  Egibi.  Many  an 
epoch  not  half  so  remote  in  time  cannot  produce 
one  quarter  so  much  documentary  evidence.  The 
Egibi  tablets,  with  their  dry  records  of  transactions 
in  all  branches  of  social  life  and  mutual  relations, 
present  a  very  complete  skeleton,  which  it  would  be 


248  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

a  delightful  and  not  over-difficult  task  to  clothe  with 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  poetically  created  living  per- 
sons. The  greatest  difificulty  at  present  would  be 
the  number  of  unintelligible  words.  It  stands  to 
reason  that  the  language  of  every-day  life  and  busi- 
ness transactions  must  be  very  different  from  that  of 
historical  annals,  as  represented  by  the  royal  wall- 
inscriptions  and  cylinders.  These  monotonous  and 
stifT  productions  continually  repeat  not  only  the 
same  words,  but  whole  sentences  and  set  forms  of 
speech.  Large  portions  of  them  are  very  much  like 
blank  forms  in  which  the  names  only  have  to  be 
filled  in.  In  short,  the  public  documents  are  writ- 
ten in  an  official  and  conventional  style,  while  the 
private  tablets  represent  what  might  be  called  idio- 
matic literature  ;  and  we  all  know  how  much  easier 
it  is  to  learn  the  book-language  than  every-day 
speech  of  even  a  modern  people,  with  all  the  facilities 
and  assistance  we  command,  let  alone  a  dead  one. 

18,  It  has  been  objected  that  to  give  the  firm  of 
Egibi  &  Sons  the  title  of  "  banking-house  "  is  mis- 
leading, since  the  bulk  of  their  tablets  shows  them 
to  have  done  the  business  of  money-lenders  and  per- 
haps notaries  public.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  the  bank 
deposits,  with  their  natural  accompaniment,  drafts, 
and  cheques,  were  in  use  much  before  the  invention 
of  coining.  Fr.  Lenormant  quotes  such  a  document 
(of  the  reign  of  Nabonidus,  the  last  king  of  Baby- 
lon),— a  real  banker's  draft — by  which  a  person  liv- 
ing at  Ur  gives  to  another  an  order  on  a  person 
living  at  Erech.*  To  another  such  draft  or  cheque 
*  "  La  Monnaie  dans  I'Antiquite,"  vol.  I.,  p.  117. 


BABYLON  THE    GREAT.  249 

of  the  reign  of  Nebuchadrezzar,  the  sender  (at 
Kutha)  and  the  payer  (at  Borsip)  are  named,  but 
not  the  payee :  it  is  a  cheque  "  to  bearer."  *  That 
such  documents  were  negotiable,  like  our  own  let- 
ters of  exchange  or  cheques,  /.  c,  could  be  indorsed 
and  exchanged  for  their  value  in  gold  or  silver 
(discounted),  and  that  in  very  ancient  times,  is 
shown  by  a  bilingual  text  (Accadian  and  Assy- 
rian), which  says :  "  His  mandate — not  paid,  but 
yet  to  be  sent — he  exchanged  against  silver."f 
These  are  real  banking-operations,  the  invention  of 
which  has  always  been  attributed  to  the  Jewish 
financiers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  which  it  is  quite 
startling  to  see  in  familiar  operation  among  their 
ancestors  or  kindred  over  twenty  centuries  before 
them. 

"And  yet,"  remarks  Lenormant,|  "  if  we  stop  to  consider  the 
peculiar  conditions  under  which  the  commerce  of  the  Assyrians  and 
Babylonians  was  carried  on,  we  shall  be  able  to  account  for  this  at 
first  sight  strange  fact ;  we  shall  understand  the  causes  which  led 
these  nations  to  invent  the  draft  or  exchange  system  so  much  earlier 
than  others.  Their  trade,  from  the  geographical  position  of  their 
countries,  was  necessarily  carried  on  by  land,  by  means  of  caravans 
which  had  to  traverse,  in  all  directions,  deserts  infested  by  nomadic 
robbers.  In  such  conditions,  one  of  the  merchant's  first  cares  was 
to  find  a  way  to  avoid  the  transporting  of  money  in  cash  to  distant 
points.  Every  thing  made  it  desirable  to  find  such  a  way  :  the  cum- 
bersome nature  of  metallic  values,  the  number  of  beasts  of  burden 
required  to  carry  great  quantities  of  it,  as  well  as  the  unsafe  roads. 
Therefore,  as  soon  as  there  was  a  creditor  at  one  end  of  a  caravan 
line  and  a  debtor  at  the  other,  the  idea  of  the  draft-system  must  have 
dawned  on  the  mind  of  the  creditor.  This  is  so  natural  that  a  re- 
newal of  the  same  conditions  gave   rise  to  the  same  results,  after  a 

*  "  La  Monnaie  dans  I'Antiquite,"  vol.  I.,  p.  I20. 
f  Ib.y  p.  iig.-  X  Jb.,  pp.  121,  122. 


250  MEDIA,    BABYLON.    AND  PERSIA. 

lonj^  oblivion,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  Jews  and  the  Italian 
merchants,  hampered  ])y  the  difficulties  of  transporting  coined  money 
and  beset  by  innumerable  risks,  re-invented  the  letter  of  exchange, 
but  in  the  more  perfect  form  which  has  prevailed  down  to  our 
own  times." 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  firm  Egibi 
&  Sons  did  not  transact  business  of  this  order,  and 
they  would  therefore  be,  strictly  speaking,  entitled 
to  the  name  of  "  banking-house,"  even  though  their 
principal  business  was  lending  money,  which  they 
did  on  a  large  scale — like  modern  banks,  which  by 
no  means  confine  their  operations  to  the  exchange 
and  transfer  of  values. 

19.  It  is  certain  that  the  documents  recording  the 
sales — of  slaves,  cattle,  horses,  houses,  furniture, 
land,  etc. — are  the  most  numerous,  together  with 
those  recording  loans — obligations  we  would  call 
them — at  shorter  or  longer  dates,  with  the  interest 
computed  in  money,  or  in  grain,*  sometimes  even 
in  days  of  work,  and  often  with  the  provision  of 
penalties,  should  the  payment  not  be  made  on  time, 
such  as  that,  if  not  paid  on  a  certain  day,  the  debt 
shall  be  increased  one  third.  There  are  usually  sev- 
eral witnesses  :  the  scribe  put  down  the  name  of 
those  who  could  not  write  and  they  made  a  mark  in 
the  soft  clay  with  their  nails.  In  many  cases  the 
loan  was  made  on  security  given  by  a  third  party, 
or  on  mortgage  of  property,  under  which  head  the 
borrower  frequently  included  his  children,  nay  his 
own  person.     We  are  told  that,  if  tabulated,  these 

*  This  was  a  convenient  arrangement  to   both  sides,  as  many  of 
the  government  taxes  were  paid  in  grain. 


BABYLON  THE   GREAT.  2$ I 

tablets  might  give  the  average  price  of  every  article 
sold  in  Babylon,  or  even  hired  ;  for  it  was  not  un- 
common for  people  to  rent  out  their  slaves,  and 
there  seem  to  have  been  speculators  who  made  it  a 
regular  trade  to  train  and  hire  out  slaves,  by  con- 
tract, in  which  case  a  sum  of  money  is  usually  agreed 
on  to  be  paid  to  the  owner  should  the  slave  be  lost, 
killed,  or  injured.  Sometimes  a  condition  of  the 
transaction  is  that  the  hirer  shall  teach  the  slave  a 
trade.  Slaves  were  frequently  marked — probably 
branded — for  identification,  with  their  master's  name, 
on  the  wrist,  the  arm,  the  shoulder.  This  facilitated 
another  transaction,  which  must  have  been  very  con- 
venient for  people  in  temporarily  straitened  circum- 
stances— the  conditional  sale  of  slaves,  with  the 
provision  that  whenever  the  original  owner  claimed 
the  slave  sold  on  this  understanding,  that  slave 
should  be  returned  to  him  or  her,  the  purchase- 
money  being  refunded.  If  children  had  been  born 
meanwhile,  the  purchaser  could  keep  them  if  he 
chose,  on  paying  a  small  sum  for  them.  All  these 
transactions  could  equally  well  be  performed  through 
a  third  person,  by  power  of  attorney.  In  wealthy 
establishments  this  power  was  usually  given  to  the 
head-slave  or  steward.  If  a  freeman,  it  behooved 
the  agent  to  be  very  careful,  as  ignorance  or  neglect 
of  nice  points  of  legal  form  were  just  as  apt  to  get 
people  into  trouble  then  as  nowadays.  Thus  we 
have  a  contract  by  which  a  certain  Iba,  son  of  Silla, 
buys  some  property  on  behalf  and  by  authority  of  a 
man  and  his  wife  ;  Bunanitu  is  the  name  of  the  lat- 
ter.    Had   the   scribe    omitted  the  clause,  "  by  the 


252  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

authority  of  ,  .  .  ,"  and  had  the  employer  after- 
wards chosen  to  deny  or  repudiate  the  purchase, 
Iba,  son  cf  Silla,  would  have  been  compelled  to  keep 
and  pay  for  it  himself,  the  law  being  explicit  on  the 
subject:  "If  a  man  has  contracted  for  a  field  and 
house  in  the  name  of  another,  but  has  not  received  a 
letter  of  authority  concerning  it,  or  has  not  shown  a 
duplicate  of  the  tablet,  the  man  who  wrote  the  tablet 
and  contract  in  his  name  shall  lose  that  house  and 
f^eld." 

20.  Not  that  we  can  boast  the  recovery  of  a  com- 
plete code  of  Babylonian  law.  It  is  even  very  doubt- 
ful whether  such  a  code  existed  at  all.  The  lawyers 
and  judges  looked  for  guidance  to  some  very  ancient 
documents,  now  known  as  "  tablets  of  precedents." 
These  tablets,  several  of  which  have  been  found  and 
deciphered,  seem  to  have  formed  a  continuous  series, 
and  are  bilingual,  the  text  being  in  the  old  Accadian 
language,  accompanied  by  an  Assyrian  translation. 
These  texts  or  sentences  are  said  to  be  not  exactly 
laws,  but  to  "  give  precepts  or  rules  for  the  conduct 
of  man  in  his  various  occupations."  *  Had  we  the 
entire  collection,  we  should  probably  find  that  these 
"  rules  and  precepts,"  the  accumulated  fruits  of  per- 
haps centuries  of  experience  and  observation,  em- 
braced the  whole  range  of  human  life,  in  its  private, 
social,  and  public  capacities.  As  it  is,  we  find  there 
much  valuable  material.  One  tablet  gives  instruc- 
tion for  the  agriculturist,  "  when  and  how  he  is  to 

*  See  the  paper  of  Mr.  George  Berlin,  "  Accadian  Precepts  for  the 
Conduct  of  Man  in  Private  Life,"  in  "Trans,  of  the  Sec.  of  Bible 
Archaeology,"  vol.  VIII.,  1884. 


BABYLON  THE   GREAT.  253 

prepare  and  sow  his  fields,  build  his  house  and  barn, 
what  are  his  relations  towards  his  landlord  in  such 
and  such  a  circumstance."  The  most  important  is 
the  tablet  which  instructs  a  man  as  to  his  private 
life  and  his  duties  towards  his  relatives.  Beginning 
with  simple  rules,  it  ends  with  what  might  almost  be 
called  criminal  laws. 

21.  After  mentioning  (§  i)  what  time  a  child  shall 
be  declared  a  freeman,  i.  e.,  of  age,  and  describing 
(§  2)  the  ceremony  which  accompanies  the  declara- 
tion, §§  3  and  4  speak  of  the  first  act  of  the 
child  when  he  became  a  man,  which  consisted  in 
paying  tribute,  double  the  usual  sum ;  §§  5  and 
6  state  that  "  the  child  is  henceforth  answerable 
for  his  actions  and  will  bear  the  consequences  of  his 
sins."  The  paragraph  on  the  nursing  and  education 
of  the  child  are  hopelessly  injured  ;  one  line,  how- 
ever, stands  out  clear  and  significant :  "  He  (the 
father)  makes  Jiim  (the  child)  learn  inscriptions'' 
Then  comes  another  line  :  "  He  makes  him  take  a 
luife^  This  was  the  "  chief  wife,"  who  seems  to 
have  been  chosen  and  asked  from  her  parents  by 
the  father,  as  a  last  act  of  parental  authority.  This 
union  was  indissoluble,  as  can  be  inferred  from  the 
lines :  "  HencefortJi,  the  Jinsband  cannot  remove  her 
who  possesses  his  heart."  The  bride,  who  was  to 
remain  the  head  of  the  household  for  life,  was  to  be 
a  free-born  maiden,  and  brought  a  dowry,  which,  on 
the  death  of  the  husband,  returned  to  her  and  to  her 
children,  or,  if  there  were  no  children,  to  her  parents, 
i.e.,  the  source  whence  it  originally  came. 

22.  Then  follows  the  second  part  of  the  tablet, 


254  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

containin<j  a  rudimentary  attempt  at  a  penal  legis- 
lation. 

1st.  A  son  is  forbidden  to  deny  his  duty  to  his 
father,  under  penalty  of  being  reduced  to  servitude 
and  sold  as  a  slave  :  "  When  a  son  to  his  father  *  my 
father  thou  art  not '  has  said,  the  nails  he  sJiall  cut 
him,^     .     .     .    for  money  he  shall  sell  Jiiniy 

2d.  For  the  same  offence  against  his  mother,  a 
son,  besides  being  enslaved  and  expelled  from  the 
house,  is  exposed  in  the  middle  of  the  town  (proba- 
bly pilloried). 

3d.  If  a  husband  ill-treats  his  wife  so  that  she 
denies  him,  he  is  to  be  thrown  into  the  river, — 
whether  to  die,  or  only  undergo  an  ordeal,  a  punish- 
ment, is  not  specified  :  "  IVhen  a  wife,  her  husband 
having  done  wrong  to  her,  '  my  Jntsband  not  thou  art ' 
has  said,  in  the  river  they  place  him." 

4th.  "  When  a  husband  '  my  wife  not  thou  art ' 
has  said,  {i.  e.,  refuses  her  her  rights),  half  a  maneh 
of  silver  he  weighs. 

This  clause  probably  answers  to  our  provision  of 
"  alimony  to  be  paid  by  the  husband  to  his  deserted 
or  injured  wife.  There  are  also  penalties  against  the 
father  and  the  mother  who  deny  their  son. 

Lastly,  if  a  man  ill-uses  a  slave  whom  he  has 
hired  from  another,  so  that  the  slave  dies,  or  if  the 
slave  runs   away,  breaks  down   from   exhaustion  or 

*  "  Long  nails,"  remarks  Mr.  George  Bertin,  who,  it  should  be 
remembered,  is  responsible  for  the  translation,  "  seem  therefore  to 
have  been  the  mark  of  freedom,  as  long  hair  and  beard  were  among 
the  Semites.  The  slaves  and  people  of  low  condition  are  always 
represented  on  the  bas  reliefs  as  shaved." 


BABYLON  THE   GREAT.  2$$ 

illness,  that  man  "  weighs  "  half  a  measure  of  corn 
to  the  master  of  the  slave,  for  every  day,  as  a  com- 
pensation.* 

23.  It  is  rather  startling  to  find  that  these  un- 
doubtedly very  ancient  texts  or  "  precedents  " — a 
veritable  "  custom-law  " — {/ot  coutumihre)  secure  to 
women  a  position  not  only  honorable  and  influen- 
tial, but  almost  entirely  independent.  The  laws  of 
property  and  inheritance  are  always  a  fair  test  of  the 
position  which  the  women  occupy  in  a  common- 
wealth. Now  we  have  seen  above  (see  p.  253)  that 
a  woman's  dowry  by  no  means  became  her  husband's 
property.  That  law  was  completed  by  the  following 
still  more  liberal  clause  :  if  a  widow  wished  to  marry 
again, — ("  set  her  face  to  go  down  to  another  house  ") — 
she  took  with  her  not  only  her  own  dowry,  but  all 
the  property  which  her  first  husband  had  left  her. 
At  her  death,  her  dowry  was  to  be  divided  between 
the  children  of  both  marriages.  Here  the  tablet  is 
broken  off,  and  we  lose  the  conclusion  of  the  regu- 
lation— though  it  is  supposed  that,  to  be  logically 
consistent,  it  enacted  that  the  first  husband's  prop- 
erty should  go  to  his  children  alone.  One  of  the 
most  interesting  documents  is  a  will  in  due  and  legal 
form,  Avitnessed  and  attested,  by  which  a  man  pro- 

*  It  should  be  n-oted  here  on  high  Assyriological  authority  that  the 
translations  from  the  document  mentioned  in  §  22  must  be  taken  very 
guardedly,  especially  in  the  peculiar  details,  and  as  by  no  means 
final.  "  The  text  is  defective  and  the  translation  necessarily  so. 
The  interpretation  of  this  tablet  is  still  so  obscure  that  one  could  not 
well  say  too  little  about  it  in  a  history  of  Babylonia." — (Dr.  D.  G. 
Lyon,  in  a  private  letter.)  This  applies  particularly  to  the  special 
provisions,  the  general  sense  being  tolerably  well  established. 


256  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

vides  for  his  wife  :  he  leaves  certain  property  to  be 
held  in  trust  for  her  by  his  three  children.  She  is  to 
have  the  use  of  it  during  her  life,  and,  when  she  dies, 
it  reverts  to  the  children. 

24.  A  large  number  of  the  Egibi  tablets,  as  well 
as  of  the  older  contract  tablets,  show  us  women  not 
only  concerned  as  principals  in  every  kind  of  com- 
mercial and  legal  transactions, — in  which  the  husband 
frequently  appears  merely  as  witness,  or  even  as  his 
wife's  agent, — but  personally  pleading  for  their 
rights  before  the  royal  judges,  and  gaining  their 
suit  too.  Thus  Bunanitu — the  same  woman  whom 
we  saw  giving  a  power  of  attorney,  jointly  with  her 
husband,  for  the  purchase  of  some  property  in  Bor- 
sip — reappears  as  a  widow,  when  she  enters  a  civil 
suit  against  her  brother-in-law,  who  wished  to  despoil 
her  and  her  daughter  of  their  inheritance,  by  laying 
claim  to  that  very  house  and  land.  She  proved  that 
the  purchase  was  made  with  her  dowry,  to  which 
her  husband  added  a  sum  which  he  borrowed,  and 
that,  on  her  request,  and  to  secure  her  interests  "  for 
future  days,"  he  gave  her  a  document  witnessing 
that  he  had  traded  with  her  dowry,  and  that  the 
purchase  was  their  joint  act.  "  He  sealed  his  tablet 
and  wrote  upon  it  the  curse  of  the  great  gods  .  .  . 
I  have  brought  it  before  you.  Make  a  decision." 
The  judges  "  heard  their  words,"  discussed  the 
tablets,  and  decided  in  favor  of  the  widow.  The 
matter  is  related  at  far  greater  length  in  the  original 
document,  and  is  followed  by  a  general  settling  up 
of  all  the  family  affairs.  It  is  very  entertaining  to 
see  the  same  persons  turn   up  again  and  again,  now 


BABYLON  THE   GREAT.  257 

as  principals,  now  as  agents,  now  as  witnesses.  Thus 
the  money  which  Bunanitu's  husband  added  to  her 
dowry  is  said  to  have  been  borrowed  from  a  certain 
Iddina-Marduk  son  of  Basha,  whose  name  we  find 
as  witness  on  the  bill  of  sale  (see  p.  251),  while  still 
another  tablet  gives  us  his  own  marriage  contract. 
This  shows  that  the  house  Egibi,  like  modern  firms, 
had  its  well-established  circle  of  permanent  clients, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  by  carefully  studying  and 
sifting  their  archives,  it  would  be  possible  to  trace 
the  fortunes  and  mutual  relations  of  various  families 
through  several  generations.  This  fascinating  task 
will  devolve  on  the  future  novelist  of  Assyriology, 
and  spare  him,  to  a  great  extent,  even  the  trouble  of 
inventing  a  plot  for  his  story.  He  will  also  find 
numbers  of  expressive  and  peculiar  idiomatic  forms 
of  speech,  to  add  a  picturesque  local  color  to  his 
narrative — such  as  when  two  men  entering  into  part- 
nership and  bringing  each  so  much  to  begin  opera- 
tions with,  call  the  capital  thus  formed  "  mother  of 
business  y 

25.  Another  class  of  documents,  which  will  be  to 
our  novelist  a  rich  and  choice  feast,  is  the  daily  in- 
creasing collection  of  private  letters,  of  which  quite 
a  number  have  been  deciphered  of  late.  Scant  room 
limits  us  to  but  one  specimen.  It  is  a  request  for 
assistance,  addressed  by  an  aged  father  to  an  absent 
son  : 

[Obverse.^     "  (Letter)  from  Iddina-aha(?)  (to)  Remut  his  son. 

"  (Bel)  and  Nebo  peace  and  life  for  my  son  may  they  bespeak.  He, 
my  son,  knows  that  there  is  no  corn  in  the  house.  2  or  3  gur  of 
corn  by  the  hands  of  some   one  whom  thou  knowest  may  my  son 


258  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

cause  to  be  brought.      There  is  none.      By  the  hands  of  the  boatman 
whom  thou  indicatedst,  send  " 

\Reverse.\  ".  .  .  unto  me.  .Send  the  gift.  Cause  it  to  go 
forth  to  thy  father.  Thi.s  day  Bel  and  Nebo  for  the  preservation  of 
my  son's  life  grant.  Remat  after  the  peace  of  Kemut  her  son  asks." 
(=Thy  mother  asks  after  thy  health.)  * 

26.  We  have  seen  above  (pp.  251-2)  that  among  a 
father's  first  duties  to  his  child  was  numbered  that 
of  sending  him  to  school — "  making  him  learn  in- 
scriptions." That  this  was  no  empty  talk  is  amply 
proved  by  a  large  class  of  tablets — perhaps  the  most 
amusing  of  all — which  have  been  found  to  be  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  reading-books  and  children's 
copy-books,  with  school  exercises,  consisting  in  short 
sentences  and  lists  of  signs,  written  out  a  great  many 
times,  for  practice,  through  all  the  stages  of  bad 
spelling  and  worse  calligraphy.  A  great  many  such 
tablets  are  bilingual,  and  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce  had 
the  good  fortune  of  lighting  on  one  sufficiently 
well  preserved  to  be  intelligible  through  several  con- 
secutive lines.  It  proves  to  be  a  simple  nursery 
tale,  which  he  translates,  as  far  as  the  text  goes, 
under  the  attractive  title,  "  Story  OF  THE  FOUND- 
LING," as  follows  : 

"  The  child  who  had  neither  father  nor  mother,  who  knew  not 
his  father  or  mother, — Into  the  fishpond(?)  he  came,  into  the  street 
he  went  ; — From  the  mouth  of  the  dogs  one  took  him,  from  the 
mouth  of  the  ravens  one  led  him  away  ; — Before  the  soothsayer  one 
took  him  from  their  mouth. — The  soles  of  his  feet  with  the  sooth- 
sayer's seal  underneath  him  were  marked. — To  the  nurse  he  was 

*  The  original  tablet  is  in  the  private  collection  of  the  Misses 
Bruce,  of  New  York,  together  with  the  manuscript  translation  by 
Mr.  Theo.  G.  Pinches — both  as  yet  unpublished. 


BABYLON  THE   GREAT.  259 

given  ;  To  the  nurse  for  three  years  his  grain,  his  food,  his  shirt, 
and  his  clothing  were  assured. — So  for  a  time  his  rearing  went  on 
for  him. — He  that  reared  him  rejoiced. (?) — His  stomach  with  the 
milk  of  man  he  filled  and  made  him  his  own  son.      .      .       " 

Here  the  tablet  breaks  off.  But  the  fragment  is 
quite  sufficient  to  show  to  what  kind  of  literature 
the  document  belongs,  especially  by  the  light  of  Pro- 
fessor Sayce's  remarks,  which  we  cannot  do  better 
than  copy  for  our  readers.  He  classes  this  text  as 
"  an  Accadian  reading-book,  intended  to  teach  the 
elements  of  the  extinct  Accadian  language  of  primi- 
tive Chaldea  to  Babylonian  boys  of  a  later  day  "  ; 
then  goes  on  : 

"  Easy  passages  in  Accadian  have  been  selected  for  the  purpose 
and  provided  with  Assyrian  translations,  while  the  text  is  inter- 
spersed with  exercises  upon  the  principal  words  occurring  in  it. 
Thus  the  phrase  '  he  made  him  his  own  son,"  is  followed  by  exam- 
ples of  the  various  ways  in  which  the  words  composing  it  could  be 
combined  with  other  parts  of  speech  or  replaced  by  corresponding 
expressions — '  his  son  ' — '  his  sonship  ' — '  for  his  sonship  ' — '  for  his 
son  he  reckoned  him  ' — '  in  the  register  of  sonship  he  inscribed 
him,'*  etc.  Like  the  lesson-books  of  our  own  nurseries,  the  old 
Babylonian  lesson-book  also  chose  such  stories  as  were  likely  to  in- 
terest children,  and  the  author  wisely  took  his  passage  from  the 
folk-lore  and  fairy  tales  of  the  boys'  nursery  rather  than  from  the 
advanced  literature  of  grown  men.     .     .     ."  f 

In  the  same  manner  our  children  first  learn  the 
dead  languages  of  their  own  race,  Latin  and  Greek, 

*  Adoption  seems  to  have  been  common  in  Babylonia,  especially 
in  families  where  there  were  no  sons.  In  the  document  quoted  on 
pp.  255-6  Bunanitu  tells  the  judges  that  she  bore  her  husband  only 
one  daughter,  and  that  he  formally  adopted  a  stranger — "  took  him 
to  sonship  and  wrote  a  tablet  of  his  sonship." 

f  See  A.  H.  Sayce's  paper  "  Babylonian  Folk-Lore,"  in  the 
Folk- Lore  Journal,  vol.  I.,  January,  1883,  pp.  16  fT. 


26o  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

in    collections    of    fables    and    anecdotes    or    short 
stories. 

27.  These  are  not  the  only  school-exercises  that 
have  survived,  and  the  method  of  impressing  things 
on  the  mind  by  writing  them  out  does  not  appear 
to  have  been  limited  to  children.  Mr.  H.  Rassam 
has  brought  home  many  fragments  containing  law- 
texts  from  the  "  tablets  of  precedents,"  copied  out 
carefully  three  times,  evidently  by  law-students,  for 
purposes  of  memorizing.  As  for  the  class  of  docu- 
ments known  as  "  contract-tablets,"  they  do  not  by 
any  means  cease  with  the  Babylonian  Empire.  Stray 
specimens  bring  down  the  use  of  them  to  an  aston- 
ishingly late  period — as  late  as  the  first  centuries 
after  Christ, — if  we  are  to  trust  one  which  is  dated 
from  the  reign  of  a  Persian  king  who  reigned  about 
100  A.D., — showing  that  the  use  of  cuneiform  writing 
died  out  very  gradually  and  prevailed  much  longer 
than  had  at  first  been  supposed. 


X. 


MEDIA  AND  THE  RISE  OF  PERSIA. 

I.  Had  the  throne  of  Media,  during  Nebuchadrez- 
zar's long  reign,  been  occupied  by  Kyaxares,  or  a 
monarch  of  the  same  ambitious  and  active  stamp,  it 
is  very  probable  that  the  Babylonian  would  have 
had  occasion,  in  his  lifetime,  to  test  the  efficiency  of 
those  bulwarks  and  defences  which  his  foresight  so 
busily  devised.  For  relationship,  especially  the  ar- 
tificial connection  by  marriage,  has  not  much  weight 
in  politics,  and  if  the  founder  of  the  Median  Empire 
had  seen  an  opening  toward  "  rounding  it  off "  (as 
the  modern  phrase  goes),  at  the  expense  of  either  or 
both  his  neighbors,  it  is  not  likely  that  consideration 
for  either  his  daughter  or  daughter-in-law  would 
have  stopped  him.  But  he  died  quite  early  in  Neb- 
uchadrezzar's reign  (584),  and  his  son  and  successor, 
Astyages  (the  "  Ishtuvegu  "  of  cuneiform  records. 
See  p.  221),  was  a  man  of  self-indulgent  habit,  indolent 
and  pleasure-loving,  the  very  model  of  the  spendthrift 
heir,  bent  merely  on  enjoying  the  greatness  he  has  not 
helped  to  build,  until,  by  his  carelessness,  he  loses  it. 
His  accession,  therefore,  was  a  very  good  thing  for 
his  brother-in-law  of  Babylon  and  his  father-in-law 
Alyattes,  of   Sardis,  who,  with   the   help  of  his  son 


262  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

Kroisos  (Croesus),  went  on  consolidating  and  enlar- 
ging the  dominion  of  Lydia,  and  settling  old-standing 
accounts  with  the  Greek  cities  of  the  sea-shore. 

2.  Nor  was  the  change  that  had  come  over  the  na- 
tion less  great.  The  Medes  were  no  longer  the 
rough  warriors,  inured  to  hardships,  careless  of 
wealth,  of  which  they  had  not  learned  the  value, 
who  "  did  not  regard  silver,  and  as  for  gold,  took  no 
delight  in  it  "  (Isaiah  xiii.,  17).  The  booty  of  Nine- 
veh and  the  other  Assyrian  cities  had  taught  them 
the  uses  of  luxury,  and  the  court  of  Agbatana  was 
not  outdone  in  splendor  by  either  Babylon  or  Sar- 
dis.  The  palace  of  Median  royalty,  too,  was  fully 
equal  in  magnificence  to  those  of  the  older  capitals  ; 
it  is  even  possible  that  it  outshone  them  in  mere  bar- 
baric gorgeousness,  such  as  the  lavish  use  of  gold  and 
silver,  though  there  is  great  reason  to  believe  that  it 
remained  far  behind  in  point  of  artistic  decoration. 
For  the  Aryan  conquerors  had  no  art  of  their  own, 
and  had  not  yet  had  time  to  learn  that  of  their  neigh- 
bors, nor,  perhaps,  to  find  out  that  art  was  in  itself 
desirable  and  worth  learning — a  notion  originally 
foreign  to  the  rather  stern  and  practical  Eranian 
mind.  Rut,  as  national  dignity  demands  that  roy- 
alty should  be  housed  in  seemly  splendor,  an  effect  of 
great  magnificence  and  imposing  majesty  was  pro- 
duced by  other  means. 

3.  For,  if  they  had  not  made  a  study  of  art,  espe- 
cially that  of  decoration,  the  Medes  had  brought  with 
them  a  manner  of  building  which  was  to  be  fruitful 
of  artistic  results,  and  inaugurate  a  style  of  architec- 
ture entirely  different  from  that  with  which  we  have 


MEDIA    AND  THE   RISE   OF  PERSIA.  263 

become  so  familiar  in  the  lands  of  the  Tigris  and  Eu- 
phrates. In  the  abundantly  wooded  mountains  and 
valleys  of  Eastern  Eran  the  building  material  indi- 
cated by  nature  is  timber.  The  nomad's  movable 
tent  or  hut  is  imitated  in  wood,  enlarged,  and  be- 
comes the  cabin  of  logs  or  boards,  with  porch  and 
gallery  resting  on  roughly  hewn  trunks  of  trees. 
This,  again,  in  constructions  destined  for  public  pur- 
poses, expands  into  the  hall  with  aisles  of  columns 
supporting  the  roof,  and  with  wide  pillared  porch. 
The  transition  is  easy  to  the  combination  of  public 
and  private  apartments  which  forms  the  royal  dwell- 
ing or  palace.  By  devising  the  plan  on  a  grander 
scale,  by  the  choice  of  hard  and  handsome  woods,  of 
tall  and  stately  trees,  and  by  great  finish  of  work- 
manship, it  was  possible  to  produce  a  building  of  real 
beauty,  preserving  the  original  and  characteristic  fea- 
ture— a  profusion  of  columns,  to  be  distributed  in 
every  possible  combination  of  aisles,  porches,  por- 
ticos surrounding  the  inner  courts,  etc.  Exactly  such 
a  construction  was  the  palace  at  Agbatana.  The 
forests  of  the  Zagros  supplied  fine  timber  as  bounti- 
fully as  those  of  Bactria,  and  the  Medes  could  pre- 
serve their  own  traditional  style  of  building  without 
falling  into  the  absurdity  of  the  Assyrians,  who  went 
on  heaping  mountains  of  bricks,  after  the  manner  of 
fiat  and  marshy  Chaldea,  when  they  had  quarries  of 
fine  stone  at  hand  all  around  them. 

4.  The  ancient  Greek  writers  describe  the  palace 
of  the  Median  kings  (possibly  begun  by  Deiokes, 
and  enlarged  by  Kyaxares),  as  occupying  an  area  of 
fully  two  thirds  ot  a  mile,  at  the  foot  of  Mt.  OrONTES 


264  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

(modern  Elvend)  ;  it  was  built  entirely  of  costly 
cedar  and  cypress,  but  the  wood  was  nowhere  visible, 
as  not  only  the  columns  and  beams,  but  the  ceilings 
and  walls,  were  overlaid  with  gold  or  silver  plating, 
while  the  roof  was  made  of  silver  tiles.  Herodotus 
is  filled  with  admiration  at  the  effect  produced  by 
the  walls  which  enclosed  the  palace,  "  rising  in  cir- 
cles, one  within  the  other.  The  plan  of  the  place  is 
that  each  of  the  walls  should  out-top  the  one  beyond 
it  by  the  battlements.  The  nature  of  the  ground, 
which  is  a  gentle  slope,  favors  this  arrangement  in 
some  degree,  but  it  was  mainly  effected  by  art.  The 
number  of  the  circles  is  seven,  the  royal  palace  and 
the  treasuries  standing  within  the  last.  ...  Of 
the  outer  wall,  the  battlements  are  white  ;  of  the 
next,  black  ;  of  the  third,  scarlet ;  of  the  fourth, 
blue  ;  of  the  fifth,  orange  ;  all  these  are  covered  with 
paint.  The  last  two  have  their  battlements  coated 
respectively  with  silver  and  gold."  The  city  was 
built  outside  the  circuit  of  the  walls.  The  only  draw- 
back to  this  picturesque  and  well-defended  situation 
was  the  want  of  water.  There  was  none  nearer  than 
the  other  side  of  Mt.  Orontes,  several  miles  from  the 
city,  where  a  small  lake  fed  a  mountain  stream.  That 
stream  was  turned  from  its  course  and  brought  by  a 
tunnel,  fifteen  feet  in  width,  which  was  cut  through 
the  base  of  the  mountain  for  the  purpose.  This  is 
the  work  which  Median  legend,  followed  by  the 
Greeks,  attributed  to  the  fabulous  Queen  Semira- 
mis.*  It  is  very  probable  that  it  was  planned  and 
carried  out  by  Kyaxares. 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  198. 


MEDIA    AND  THE  RISE   OF  PERSIA.  265 

5.  The  general  effect,  as  beheld  from  a  distance, 
especially  from  the  low  level  of  the  plain,  must  have 
been  marvellously  quaint  and  impressive.  The 
graded  height  of  the  seven  concentric  walls  and  the 
combination  of  colors  at  once  recall  the  great  Zig- 
gurat  of  Nebo,  at  Borsip,*  and  naturally  suggest 
that  the  general  idea  may  have  been  borrowed  from 
there.  This  may  well  be,  and,  if  so,  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  significance  and  sacredness  of  the  number 
seven  in  the  Eranian  religion  prompted  the  imita- 
tion. Besides,  the  legend  of  the  original  Holy 
Mountain,  of  which  the  Chaldean  Ziggurat  was  a  re- 
minder,f  was  common  to  both  races,  and  Duncker 
no  doubt  comes  very  near  the  truth  when  he  ex- 
plains the  peculiar  construction  and  decoration  of 
the  Median  palace  in  the  following  words:  "As 
Ahura- Mazda  sat  on  his  golden  throne  in  the  sphere 
of  pure  Light  on  the  summit  of  golden  Hukairya,  so 
the  earthly  ruler  was  to  dwell  in  his  palace  at  Agba- 
tana,  in  golden  apartments,  enclosed  within  a  golden 
wall.  TheAvesta  shows  us  Mithra  in  golden  helmet 
and  silver  cuirass ;  the  wheels  of  his  chariot  are  of 
gold  ;  his  milk-white  steeds'  forefeet  are  shod  with 
gold,  their  hindfeet  with  silver.  So  it  was  meet  that 
the  royal  roof  and  battlements  should  gleam  in  silver 
and  in  gold."  Nor  can  the  account  be  rejected  as 
improbable  on  the  plea  of  extravagance.  The  booty 
from  Assyria  could  surely  cover  the  outlay,  and  that 
without  materially  draining  the  treasury.  We  are 
expressly   told   that   when  Alexander    of    Macedon 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  280-283. 
f  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  274-276. 


266  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

conquered  Asia,  he  carried  away  most  of  the  silver 
tiles  off  the  roof ;  yet  seventy-five  years  later  another 
conqueror  still  found  at  Agbatana  booty  to  the 
amount  of  about  five  million  dollars,  in  gold  and  sil- 
ver-plating and  silver  roof-tiles.  Yet  the  bulk  of  the 
gold  and  silver,  to  the  value  of  eight  and  a  half  mil- 
lions dollars,  had  been  removed  by  the  Persian  king 
before  Alexander  came.  We  must  remember  that 
the  accumulation  of  wealth  in  Nineveh  and  Kalah 
must  have  far  exceeded  our  powers  of  calculation, 
and  that  one  of  the  very  last  acts  of  Assyrian  power 
was  the  wholesale  cleaning  out  of  the  treasure- 
houses  of  the  kings  of  Elam,  at  Shushan,  "  where 
no  other  enemy  had  ever  put  his  hand  "  *  through  all 
the  twenty  centuries  of  that  kingdom's  prosperity. 

6.  Whether  Agbatana  was  surrounded,  like  Baby- 
lon, by  an  outer  wall  of  defence,  we  do  not  know. 
There  was  no  such  wall  at  the  time  of  Herodotus,  or 
he  would  have  mentioned  it.  Still,  as  Agbatana  had 
been  taken  in  the  interval,  it  is  quite  possible  there 
may  have  been  a  wall  and  it  was  demolished  by  the 
victors.  This  question  and  many  others  may  be 
cleared  up  some  day  when  serious  diggings  are  un- 
dertaken at  Hamadan.  Unfortunately,  nothing  of 
much  importance  has  yet  been  done,  and  of  the  few 
fragmentary  relics  that  have  been  found,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say  whether  they  belong  to  this  period  or  a 
later  one.  The  same  uncertainty  confronts  us  at 
every  turn  when  we  attempt  to  enquire  for  details 
concerning  the  Median  nation,  its  institutions,  and 
its  life.  Perhaps  no  other  empire  of  like  extent  and 
*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  399. 


MEDIA   AND  THE  RISE   OF  PERSIA.  267 

power  has  left  so  few  traces  of  its  existence,  so  few 
handles  for  history  to  take  hold  of.  This  is  certainly 
owing  to  the  lack  of  durable  monuments.  Not  an 
inscription  has  reached  us ;  not  one  undoubtedly 
genuine  specimen  of  art  or  craft ;  nothing  but  le- 
gends of  epical  character,  and  those  not  in  native 
form  or  garb,  but  transmitted  through  Greek  writers, 
who  got  them  in  fragments,  through  the  channel  of 
ignorant,  unreliable  interpreters,  and  proceeded  to 
impart  them  as  history.  Of  the  real  value  of  such 
history,  we  have  a  sample  in  the  accounts  of  Semir- 
amis.  But,  though  modern  research  has  very  well 
established  what  is  7iot  true  in  the  old  Greek  stories, 
it  has  hitherto  failed  in  procuring  much  positive  in- 
formation concerning  the  Medes. 

7.  A  few  facts,  however,  we  may  hold  for  certain. 
One  of  the  principal  is  that  the  Medes  used  to  call 
themselves  Aryas,  and  were  generally  known  under 
that  name  to  their  neighbors  and  subjects;  another, 
that  the  population  of  the  empire  was  mixed.  He- 
rodotus knows  by  name  of  six  so-called  "  tribes," 
and  these  names  it  has  been  found  possible  to  trace 
from  the  Greek  corruption  to  the  original  Eranian 
forms.  They  tell  their  own  story.  One  means  "na- 
tives," another  "  nomads,"  a  third  "  dwellers  in 
tents,"  a  fourth  "owners  of  the  soil,"  and  only  one 
is  expressly  designated  as  "  Aryan  people  "  ("^r/- 
zantos"  in  Persian  ^^ Aryiazantu  ").  Such  a  distinc- 
tion strongly  implies  that  the  others  were  not 
Aryans,  and  admirably  tallies  with  the  theory  of  the 
gradual  advance  of  the  Aryan  Medes  and  their  occu- 
pation of  Ellip  and  the  other  portions  of  the  Zagros 


268  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  FERSTA. 

highlands,  where  they  became  a  ruhng  class,  a  mili- 
tary aristocracy,  which  held  the  "  natives,"  the 
"owners  of  the  soil  "  (of  different,  mostly  Turanian, 
race),  in  subjection.  The  seven-fold  belt  of  defence, 
with  which  the  foreign  royalty  enclosed  itself,  may 
have  been  at  first  a  necessary  precaution  against  pos- 
sible risings.  In  the  course  of  time,  as  the  distinc- 
tion grew  less  marked,  and  the  enmity  of  the  races 
became  merged  in  a  common  national  feeling,  the 
conquerors'  name  was  adopted  by  the  rest  of  the 
population,  and  they  all  called  themselves  "  Medes  " 
together.  As  to  the  "  nomads "  and  the  "  tent- 
dwellers  "  (shepherds),  this  designation  probably 
covers  a  large  proportion  of  still  fluctuating  popula- 
tion in  the  steppes  of  Central  and  Western  Eran,  com- 
posed mainly  of  Eranian  elements ;  for  the  Median 
Empire  at  this  period  of  its  greatest  extension  cov- 
ered an  area  reaching  from  the  Halys  and  Araxes  on 
one  side,  across  a  vast  tract  of  desert  and  mountain 
wilds  on  the  other,  some  say,  as  far  as  the  Indus  it- 
self. But  its  eastern  boundaries  were  never  very  well 
defined.  It  seems  certain,  however,  that  most  coun- 
tries composing  Eastern  Eran — Hyrcania,  Parthia, 
Bactria,  and  several  more  which  figure  on  ancient 
maps,  were  subject  and  paid  tribute  to  Media ;  some 
of  them  probably  were  ruled  by  Median  governors. 

8.  The  sixth  Median  tribe  on  Herodotus'  list 
bears  the  name  of  Magi.  That  these  were  the 
priests,  forming  a  separate  body,  there  is  no  shadow 
of  a  doubt.  It  is  the  name — and  the  only  one — 
under  which  the  Eranian  priesthood  has  been  known 
to  foreign  nations.     Yet,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  not 


MEDIA    AND  THE   RISE    OF  PERSIA.  269 

the  name  that  is  given  them  in  the  Avesta,  where 
the  priests,  ever  since  they  form  a  body  or  class,  are 
uniformly  designated  as  "  Athravans."  There  is  a 
contradiction  here,  which  is  further  enhanced  by  the 
fact  that  the  Magi,  although  undoubtedly  the  guar- 
dians of  Avestan  law  and  worship,  indulged  in  prac- 
tices foreign  to  that  law,  nay,  directly  opposed  to  it, 
principally  that  of  conjuring  and  divining,  which  has 
become  inseparably  associated  with  that  priestly 
class,  in  the  universally  accepted  words  "  magic," 
"  magician."  Herodotus  tells  us  that  the  Magi  pre- 
sided at  sacrifices,  where  they  chanted  hymns,  and 
that  they  delighted  in  killing  with  their  own  hands 
ants,  snakes,  flying  and  creeping  things,  in  fact,  all 
sorts  of  animals  except  dogs.  This  is  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Avestan  law.  Much  later  writers 
report  that  the  Magi  worshipped  and  sacrificed  to 
the  Evil  Power,  and  one  of  them  expressly  relates 
that  they  press  in  a  mortar  the  herb  called  Omomi 
(Haoma),  invoking  the  Power  of  Evil  and  Darkness, 
then  mix  the  juice  with  the  blood  of  a  sacrificed 
wolf,  and  pour  the  drink-offering  on  a  spot  on  which 
the  sun  never  shines.*  Such  practices,  judged  by 
the  light  of  the  Avesta,  are  nothing  less  than  impious, 
and  could  not  possibly  have  been  originated  by  the 
Eranian  Athravan  of  early  Mazdeism.  But  they  are 
by  no  means  incompatible  with  the  spirit  of  Turanian 
or  so-called  Shamanistic  religions,  like  that  of  pre- 
Semitic  Chaldea,  several  of  which  incline  to  pay  the 
rites  of  worship  rather  to  the  Powers  of  Darkness 
than  those  of  Light.  The  Shamans  or  sorcerer- 
*  Plutarch  :   "  Isis  and  Osiris." 


270  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

priests  of  many  Turanian  tribes  of  our  own  day, 
from  Lapland  through  Siberia  and  Central  Asia,  are 
the  representatives  of  the  still  surviving  hideous 
superstition.*  Indeed,  there  still  exists,  among  the 
Kurds  who  live  in  Assyria,  in  the  Sinjar  hills,  where 
Layard  visited  and  studied  them,  as  far  as  they  would 
permit,  a  very  curious  sect  which,  together  with  many 
old-Christian  and  Mussulman  features,  presents  a 
survival  of  what  was  probably  the  religion  of  pre- 
Aryan  Media.  They  are  called  the  Yezidis,  or 
"  Devil-worshippers."  They  believe  in  God,  but  do 
not  show  him  any  observance,  while  they  show  servile 
reverence  to  the  Devil,  who  has  a  temple  among 
them,  and  to  whose  symbol,  the  serpent,  they  pay 
public  honor.  For,  they  say  with  a  kind  of  perverse 
logic,  God,  being  good  of  his  nature,  can  do  nothing 
but  good  to  men,  and  there  is  no  necessity  of  asking 
him  to  do  so  ;  the  Devil,  on  the  contrary,  being  bad, 
is  inclined  to  do  harm,  unless  kept  in  a  good  humor 
by  constant  entreaty  and  propitiation.  Traces  of 
similar  conceptions  still  linger  among  various  moun- 
tain tribes  of  Armenia  and  Kurdistan  (ancient  Zagros). 
9.  After  all  that  has  been  said,  we  shall  not  be 
far  from  the  truth  if  we  assume  the  Magi  to  have 
been  originally  the  native  priesthood  of  the  vast 
mountainous  region  subsequently  occupied  by  the 
Medes  and  known  as  Western  Eran.  With  the  ar- 
rival of  the  Aryan  conquerors,  who  brought  their 
own  lofty,  pure,  recently  reformed  religion,  began  the 
process  of  mutual  concessions  and  assimilation  which 
marked  the  third  stage  of  the  Avestan  evolution, 
*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  180. 


MEDIA    AND  THE  RISE    OF  PERSIA.  27 1 

and  to  which  we  referred  the  foreign  and  mostly 
Turanian  practices  that  make  up  so  great  a  portion 
of  the  Vendidad  (see  pp.  142-156).  The  fusion  of 
the  two  religions  was  followed  by  that  of  the  two 
priesthoods,  and  the  Athravans  were  merged  in  the 
Magi,  the  sixth  Median  tribe  on  the  list  of  Herodo- 
tus. How  the  fusion  was  effected,  and  why  the 
name  "  Magi  "  absorbed  and  was  substituted  for  the 
older  one,  will  probably  never  be  found  out.  Indeed, 
that  very  name  has  been  and  still  is  the  subject  of 
discussion  among  the  leading  scholars.  Many  con- 
nect it  with  the  Accadian  imga  (priest),  Semitic  mag, 
which  enters  into  the  familiar  title  of  Rab-inag* 
Others  will  not  hear  of  this  Chaldean  connection, 
and  assert  a  purely  Aryan  origin  of  the  word,  ac- 
counting for  it  by  the  Vedic  word  inaghd,  "  great," 
perhaps  "  holy."  Whether  traces  of  an  original  con- 
flict and  hostility  should  be  detected  in  certain  pas- 
sages of  the  Avesta,  and  the  pre-Aryan  priesthood 
should  be  understood  under  the  "false  Athravans" 
denounced  in  those  passages,  as  some  would  have  it, 
is  too  doubtful  a  question  to  be  here  discussed.  We 
must  be  content  with  the  certainty  that,  in  historical 
times,  the  Magi  were  the  national  priestly  class  of 
Media  or  Western  Eran,  the  keepers  and  propagators 
of  the  Avestan  law  as  represented  by  the  Vendidad, 
keeping  in  view  the  important  fact  that  the  observ- 
ances which  they  so  severely  enforced,  such  as  the 
exposure  of  the  dead,  were  not  by  any  means  adopted 
by  all  the  Eranian  nations.  It  was  only  in  the  ulti- 
mate development  reached  by  Zoroastrian  Magism 
*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  255. 


2/2  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

under  the  Sassanides,  that  the  religious  law  of  ancient 
Media  was  proclaimed  the  only  orthodox  one,  and 
made  obligatory  for  the  whole  of  Eran  (see  p.  28). 

10.  The  Magi  of  this  period  appear  as  a  powerful 
separate  body,  possessing  large  territories  with  cities 
of  their  own,  the  centre  of  which  is  Rhagae,  in  olden 
times  the  chief  city  of  Media  after  Agbatana.  In 
these  territories  they  seem  to  exercise  something 
like  actual  independent  sovereignty,  and  Rhag^  is 
the  seat  of  their  chief  and  head.  As  they  claim  to 
form  a  clan,  descended  directly  from  Zarathushtra, 
this  their  high-priest,  a  sort  of  Zoroastrian  pope,  in- 
vested with  both  spiritual  and  temporal  power,  bears 
the  title  of  Zarathustrotema,  or  "  Chief  Zara- 
thushtra," literally  "  Most  Zarathushtra "  (of  all 
Zarathushtras).  We  see  from  this  that  the  name 
was  sometimes  used  as  a  title.  It  is  used  in  this 
manner  in  a  fragment  of  catechism  which  we  find 
at  the  end  of  a  chapter  of  Zend  (commentary)  on 
the  Ahunavairya  (Yasna,  XIX.)  and  which  clearly 
defines  this  state  of  things.  The  four  classes  and 
the  five  chiefs  having  been  mentioned,  an  examina- 
tion begins,  by  question  and  answer,  of  which  the 
following  is  an  extract : 

"  Q.  What  classes  of  men  ? 

"  A.  The  priest,  the  warrior,  the  tiller  of  the  ground,  and  thi 
artisan.    .    .    . 

"  Q.   What  are  the  chiefs  ? 

"A.  They  are  the  house-chief,  the  village-chief,  and  the  tribe-chief, 
the  chief  of  the  province  (king),  and  the  Zarathushtra  as  the  fifth. 
That  is  in  those  provinces  which  are  outside  the  Zarathushtrian  do- 
main.   Ragha,  the  Zarathushtrian  city,  has  only  four  chiefs. 

"  Q.  How  are  these  chiefs  constituted  ? 


MEDIA    AND  THE   RISE    OF  PERSIA.  2/3 

"  A.  They  are  the  house-chief,  the  village-chief,  the  tribe-chief, 
and  the  Zarathushtra  as  the  fourth." 

Evidently  there  is  no  king  in  Rhagae,  and  his 
place  is  occupied  by  the  high-priest,  who,  let  it  be 
noted,  is  ranked  above  the  kings  in  the  hierarchy  of 
the  other  provinces.  We  cannot  say  at  what  time 
the  priestly  class  achieved  so  high  a  position,  but 
there  may  have  been  something  of  the  kind  in  the 
time  of  Herodotus,  which  would  justify  him  in 
making  of  the  Magi  a  separate  tribe.  Certain  it  is 
that  the  religion  of  Zoroaster,  as  it  was  rehandled 
by  the  Magi,  spread  westwards  as  far  as  the  Median 
domination  reached  ;  for,  centuries  after  its  fall, 
Greek  writers  find  fire-chapels  and  Magi  officiating 
therein,  with,  paitiddna  and  barcsvia,  chanting  sacred 
songs  from  a  book,  in  Lydia  and  Cappadocia.  How 
far  that  domination  extended  in  the  east,  it  were 
difficult  to  say.  Some  think  that  it  stretched  from 
the  Indus  to  the  Halys,  and  only  failed  to  reach  the 
Ionian  sea-coast  because  it  was  unexpectedly  cut 
off  by  a  kindred  and  hitherto  vassal  nation,  the 
Persians. 

II.  We  have  no  meaiTs  of  ascertaining  at  what 
time  or  in  what  manner  took  place  the  migration  of 
this  Eranian  people,  or  when  they  reached  the 
rugged  but  well-conditioned  country  by  the  Persian 
Gulf  to  which  they  gave  their  name,  Persis,  and 
which  corresponds  pretty  accurately  to  the  province 
still  known  under  the  same,  but  slightly  altered, 
name  of  Pars  or  Farsistan.  It  will  probably  al- 
ways remain  a  matter  of  uncertainty  whether  they 
came  from  the  northeast   across   the    desert    by   a 


2/4  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

route  of  their  own,  as  a  separate  body  and  indepen- 
dently of  the  main  current  of  Eranian  migration 
more  directly  making  for  the  west  ;  or  whether  they 
formed  part  of  that  current,  and  only  after  reaching 
the  upper  highlands  of  the  Zagros  (Aderbeidjan  and 
Kurdistan),  branched  off  on  a  further  tramp,  and, 
following  the  direction  of  the  valleys  imbedded  be- 
tween the  seven-fold  ridges  of  the  Zagros,  settled  in 
that  continuation  of  it  which  rounds  off  to  skirt  the 
sweep  of  the  Gulf,  and  sends  out  decreasing  spurs  to 
meet  those  that  may  be  called  the  outposts  of  the 
great  SULEIMAN  range.  What  speaks  most  in  favor 
of  the  latter  supposition  is  that  ever  since  the  name 
of  the  Medes — (Madai,  Matai,  Amadai) — makes  its 
appearance  in  the  royal  annals  of  Assyria,  /.  e.,  as 
early  as  Shalmaneser  II.,  another  name  almost  in- 
variably accompanies  it,  or  at  least  occurs  on  the 
same  inscription, — that  of  the  land  and  people  of 
Barsua  or  Parsua,  which  have  been  located  with 
almost  certainty  just  beyond  the  principalities  of 
Urartu  (Armenia),  somewhere  in  Aderbeidjan.  There 
is  nothing  unlikely  in  the  hypothesis  of  the  Parsuas 
having  first  occupied  the  Zagros  highlands  jointly 
with  the  Medes,  then  separated  and  founded  a  n»ew 
and  more  independent  principality  of  their  own.  At 
all  events  they  call  themselves  Aryas,  as  did  the 
Medes;  and  one  of  their  mightiest  kings,  Dareios  I., 
in  his  great  rock-inscription  (of  which  more  fully 
hereafter),  glories  in  being  "  a  Persian,  son  of  a  Per- 
sian, an  Arya,  of  Aryan  seed."  If  the  identity  of  the 
Barsuas  or  Parsuas  of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  with 
the    later  Persians  be  accepted,  it   may   further  be 


MEDIA    AND  THE  RISE   OF  PERSIA.  2/5 

admitted  as  not  entirely  unlikely  that  religious  differ- 
ences may  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  separa- 
tion, for  we  shall  see  that  the  Persians  retained  the 
Zoroastrian  revelation  in  a  far  purer  and  more  unal- 
loyed form  than  their  kindred,  the  Medes. 

12.  By  its  conditions  of  soil  and  climate,  Persia 
proper — as  Persis  may  be  called — was  eminently  apt 
to  produce  a  race  of  a  high  moral  and  physical 
standard.  Notwithstanding  its  almost  tropical  lati- 
tude, the  elevation  of  its  ground  gives  it  the  advan- 
tages of  moderate  zones,  as  shown  by  the  vegetation 
of  the  country,  which,  together  with  sycamores, 
cypresses,  myrtles,  the  fig-tree,  the  date-palm,  the 
lemon,  orange,  and  pomegranate,  embraces  trees  and 
fruits  common  to  far  more  northern  regions,  such  as 
the  oak,  the  poplar,  willow,  acacia,  even  the  juniper, 
pears,  apples,  plums,  nuts,  and  various  berries.  The 
peach  with  its  varieties  is  indigenous  to  the  country 
of  which  it  bears  the  name  in  several  languages.  The 
valleys,  too,  produce  different  kinds  of  grain  and 
vegetables — wheat,  barley,  millet,  beans,  etc.  Such 
wealth  of  field  and  orchard  is  sufficient  to  ensure  the 
well-being  of  a  nation,  but,  requiring  assiduous  cul- 
tivation, does  not  expose  it  to  lapse  into  idleness, 
while  the  climate  in  the  uplands,  moderate  in  sum- 
mer, severe  in  winter,  with  several  months  of  snow 
and  frost,  and  great  variations  of  temperature  within 
the  twenty-four  hours,  is  wholesome  and  bracing, 
and  certainly  does  not  encourage  effeminacy.  The 
want  of  water,  the  great  plague  of  the  level  parts  of 
Eran,  which  begins  to  be  felt  at  once  in  the  plains 
into  which  the  mountains  of  Persis  slope  down,  to 


2^6 


MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 


the  east  and  north,  does  not  affect  the  uplands, 
which  abound  in  mountain  springs,  although  there 
is  no  room  for  long  and  wide  rivers,  the  five  ridges 
which  stretch  across  the  country  being  broken  only 
by  narrow  and  precipitous  passes.  The  wooded  pas- 
tures on  the  mountain  sides  and  the  rich  meadows 
in  the  valleys  were  a  very  paradise  for  cattle,  so  that 
the  Eranian  settlers  had  every  encouragement  to 
follow  the  two  pursuits  recommended  to  them  as 
essentially  worthy  and  holy — farming  and  cattle-rais- 


PERSIAN  AND  MEDIAN  FOOT-SOLDIERS. 


ing.  The  Greeks  ascribed  much  of  the  endurance 
and  warlike  qualities  for  which  they  respected  the 
Persians  to  the  fact  of  their  living  so  much  out-of- 
doors  and  being  trained  to  watchfulness  by  their 
occupation  of  guarding  flocks  and  herds  by  day  and 
by  night.  Riding,  also,  was  in  much  favor  among 
them,  and  hunting  of  every  kind  was  their  favorite 
exercise  and  pastime,  for  their  mountains  swarmed 
with  pheasants,  partridge,  grouse,  and  other  small 
game,  while  the  open  country  teemed  with  lions, 
bears,  antelope,  wild  asses,  etc.,  and  invited  to  all 


MEDIA    AND  THE   RISE   OF  PERSIA.  2// 

the  royal  sports  of  the  Assyrians.  It  naturally  fol- 
lows that  the  Persians  were  accomplished  bowmen. 
Indeed  Herodotus,  in  a  celebrated  passage,  expressly 
says  that  "  their  sons  were  carefully  instructed  from 
their  fifth  to  their  twentieth  year  in  three  things 
alone — to  ride,  to  draw  the  bow,  and  to  speak  the 
truth."  Of  course  this  description  applies  only  to  the 
class  of  warriors  or  nobles — as  the  agriculturists  and 
the  priests  would  have  many  more  things  to  learn  ; 
but  it  gives  one  the  idea  of  a  simple  and  manly 
training,  wholly  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of 
the  purest  Mazdeism.  The  national  garb,  too,  was 
hardy  and  simple :  a  short  coat  and  trousers,  both  of 
dressed  leather,  with  a  plain  belt,  the  whole  calcu- 
lated to  favor  the  greatest  freedom  and  ease  of 
motion.  But  when  they  came  in  contact  with  the 
luxurious  and  effeminate  Medes,  the  Persians,  being 
naturally  imitative  to  excess,  soon  began  to  adopt, 
together  with  more  refined  and  courtly  manners,  the 
long-flowing,  wide-sleeved  robe,  wrapped  round  the 
body  and  gathered  up  on  one  side  in  graceful  folds, 
which  was  known  to  the  Greeks  as  "  the  Median 
robe,"  being  characteristic  of  and  probably  invented 
by  that  nation.  It  is  clear  that  the  costliness  of  this 
garment  could  be  increased  to  any  amount  by  the 
fineness  of  the  material  and  of  the  dye  (Tyrian 
purple  for  instance),  and  by  the  addition  of  em- 
broidery and  ornament. 

13.  The  population  of  Persia  proper  was  not 
more  unmixed  than  that  of  Media.  The  native 
inhabitants  were,  as  usual,  not  extirpated  by  the 
new-comers,    but    reduced    to    subjection.      This   is 


278  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

how  it  comes  about  that,  of  the  ten  or  twelve 
tribes  into  which  Greek  historians  divide  the  Per- 
sian nation,  only  three  arc  named — the  Pasargad^E, 
the  Maraphians,  and  the  Maspii — as  "  the  princi- 
pal ones,  on  which  all  the  others  are  dependent." 
(Herodotus,  I.,  125.)  These  are  clearly  the  Era- 
nian  conquerors,  the  ruling  class,  the  aristocracy.  Of 
"  the  others,"  four  are  expressly  said  to  be  nomads, 
and  were  surely  not  Aryan  at  all,  while  the  rest  may 
have  been  of  mixed  race.  Of  the  nomad  tribes  the 
only  one  which  we  can  identify  with  any  degree  of 
certainty,  is  that  of  the  Mardians,  who  lived  in  the 
western  highlands  of  Persis,  and  were  probably  a 
branch  of  or  identical  with  the  better  known  AmaR- 
DIANS.  These  latter  were  a  people  probably  of  a 
mixed  race,  akin  to  the  Elamites  and  Kasshi,  and 
occupied  the  mountain  region  now  known  as  Bakh- 
TIYARI  Mountain^.-'  Their  language  appears  to 
have  been  quite,  or  very  nearly,  that  spoken  in 
Elam,  the  SUSIANA  .of  .the  Greeks,  and  to  have 
belonged  to  the  agglutinative  type  (Turanian  or 
Ouralo-Altaic  *),  consequently  to  have  been  closely 
related  to  the  ancient  language  of  Shumir  and 
Accad.f  It  is  most  probably  this  region  which 
is  repeatedly  mentioned  in  the  Assyrian  royal 
annals  under  the  name  of  Anzan,  Anshan,  and 
sometimes  ASSAN  and  Anduan.  It  was  a  part  or 
a  dependence  of  the  kingdom  of  Elam,  figuring  at 

*  The  Turanian  race  is  frequently  called  "  Ouralo-AltaVc,"  from 
the  fact  that  the  valleys  of  the  Oural  and  Altaic  ranges  have  always 
been  the  chief  nests  and  strongholds  of  its  tribes. 

\  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  145  ff. 


MEDIA    AND   THE  RISE    OF  PERSIA.  279 

times  among  its  allies,  and  at  others  included  in  the 
title  of  the  kings  of  Elam. 

14.  The  beginnings  of  Persia  as  a  nation  were  not 
different  from  those  of  Media,  or,  indeed,  any  other 
nation.  The  process  is  always  the  same.  It  is  the 
gathering  of  the  separate  and  in  a  great  measure  in- 
dependent clans  or  tribes  under  the  leadership  of 
one  more  numerous,  more  powerful,  more  gifted 
than  the  others.  That  such  a  movement  can  be 
effected  only  through  the  agency  and  authority  of 
one  master-spirit  stands  to  reason,  and  the  successful 
chieftain  naturally  becomes  the  king  of  the  state  he 
has  created.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Persian 
hereditary  monarchy,  the  founder  of  which  is  known, 
from  testimony  too  public  and  solemn  to  be  dis- 
puted, to  have  been  Hakhamanish  (more  familiar 
under  the  Greek  form  of  the  name  as  Akh^MENES), 
a  prince  of  the  clan  of  the  Pasargadae,  which  was  al- 
ways held  to  be  the  noblest  of  the  three  ruling 
tribes.  (See  p.  278.)  He  must  have  been  a  con- 
temporary of  Asshurbanipal,  and  was  succeeded  by  a 
long  line  of  kings,  famous  under-- the  name  of  Ak- 
H^MENIDyE  or  Akhaemenian  'dynasty,  the  last 
scion  of  which  lost  his  crown  and  life  in  the  strug- 
gle with  the  young  Greek  conqueror,  Alexander  of 
Macedon  (331  B.C.).  The  tribal  city  of  the  clan,  also 
called  Pasargadae,  became  the  royal  capital  of  the 
united  nation.  It  was  regarded  with  great  reverence 
ever  after  as  the  cradle  of  the  monarchy,  and  when 
that  monarchy  extended  into  the  mightiest  empire 
that  the  world  had  yet  seen,  and  its  kings  had  the 
choice  of  four  great  capitals  for  their  residence,  the 


28o  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

sacrcdness  attached  to  their  modest  ancestral  city  was 
so  great  that  each  succeeding  king  came  there  to  be 
inaugurated.  It  was  Hke  the  French  kings  going  to 
Reims,  or  the  Scotch  kings  to  Scone,  for  their  cor- 
onation. The  pkice  where  Pasargadae  stood  is  now 
called  MURGHAB,  and  there  are  some  ruins  there,  the 
oldest  in  Persia. 

15.  The  Persians  were  by  nature  a  conquering 
people ;  and  although  not  strong  enough  at  this 
early  stage  of  their  national  life  to  undertake  distant 
expeditions,  they  found  close  at  hand  an  opportunity 
for  an  easy  acquisition  too  tempting  to  be  neglected. 
Elam  was  utterly  destroyed  ;  its  people  carried  away 
and  scattered,  its  princes  slain  or  dragged  into  bond- 
age, its  cities  and  temples  sacked  and  turned  into 
dens  for  beasts  to  lie  in,  its  trees  burned,  and  its 
wells  dried  up.*  Not  a  condition  this,  in  which  a 
country  could  defend  its  very  heart  against  an  in- 
vader, much  less  its  outlying  provinces.  The  land 
of  Anshan  was  open  to  its  Persian  neighbors ; 
and  it  must  have  been  at  this  time  that  Teispfs, 
(Chishpaish),  the  son  of  Akhaemenes,  occupied  it, 
and  assumed  the  title  of  "  Great  King,  King  of  An- 
shan, or  "  of  the  city  of  Anshan."  After  his  death, 
the  royal  house  of  the  Akhaemenians  split  itself  into 
two  lines:  one  of  his  sons,  Kyros  I.  (KurUSH)  suc- 
ceeded him  in  Anshan,  while  another,  Ariaramnes 
(Ariyaramana),  reigned  in  Persia.  These  were  fol- 
lowed respectively  by  their  sons,  Kambyses  I.,  in 
Anshan,  and  Arsames  (ArshAma),  in  Persia.  It  is 
extremely  probable  that  Kyros  and  Ariaramnes  were 
*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  399-401. 


MEDIA    AND   THE   RISE   OF  PERSIA.  281 

among  the  allies  or  vassal  princes  who  iielped  Ky- 
axares  to  overwhelm  Assyria.  There  is  no  doubt, 
at  all  events,  that  Persia  stood  towards  Media  in 
the  position  of  a  subject  and  tributary  country, 
since  the  beginning  of  its  greatness  dates  from  its 
revolt  against  the  Median  rule  under  Kyros  II.  and 
the  overthrow  of  the  Median  Empire  by  that  King. 
i6.  None  of  the  histories  we  inherit  from  antiquity, 
either  entire  or  in  fragments,  nor,  consequently,  of 
the  modern  histories  compiled  from  those  materials, 
gives  us  the  facts  crowded  into  the  last  few  para- 
graphs. No  one  had  the  remotest  idea  of  Kyros 
having  been  any  thing  but  a  king  of  Persia,  or  of  the 
Akhaemenians  having  reigned  in  a  double  line,  and 
the  very  name  of  Anshan  was  unknown.  Two  sets 
of  monuments  accidentally  discovered  at  various 
times  and  in  various  places  revealed  these  facts, 
which,  standing  forth  in  the  uncompromising  sim- 
plicity and  stubbornness  of  contemporary  evidence, 
overthrew  the  familiar  structure  raised  out  of  the 
stories — half  fabulous  as  they  now  turn  out  to  be — 
which  the  Greek  writers  took  on  trust  from  Median 
and  Persian  sources,  epical  ballads,  most  of  them, 
not  untainted  with  myth.  Of  these  monuments 
some  are  Persian  and  three  are  Babylonian  cylinders 
recording  some  of  the  acts  of  Nabonidus,  the  last 
king  of  Babylon,  and  the  capture  of  that  city  by 
Kyros,  who  on  both  cylinders  is  called  and  calls 
himself  "  King  of  Anshan,"  not  of  Persia.  It  is  well- 
established  that  Kyros,  at  the  time  of  the  conquest 
of  Babylon,  was  already  king  of  Persia ;  but  that 
country  was  rather  distant  and  probably  little  known 


282  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

to  the  Chaldeans,  whereas  the  Land  and  City  of  An- 
shan  were  very  near  and  had  long  been  familiar  to 
them,  as  doubtless  also  the  new  reigning  family  that 
had  established  itself  there.  As  to  his  lineage,  this 
is  how  he  sets  it  forth  in  his  proclamation,  on  mount- 
ing the  throne  of  Babylon  : 

"  I  am  Kyros  (Kurush),  the  great  king,  the  powerful  king,  the 
king  of  Tintir*),  king  of  Shumir  and  Accad,  king  of  the  four  regions  ; 
son  of  Kambyses  (Kambujiya)  the  great  king,  King  of  the  city 
OF  Anshan,  grandson  of  Kyros,  the  great  king,  king  of  the  city  of 
Anshan,  great-grandson  of  TeIspes(Thiespish)  the  great  king,  king 
of  the  city  of  Anshan." 

17.  Very  different  in  size  from  these  tiny  Baby- 
lonian monuments  are  the  Persian  ones,  and,  like  the 
cylinders,  somewhat  posterior  to  the  time  our  his- 
tory has  reached,  indeed  still  later,  since  we  owe 
them  to  Persian  kings,  successors  of  Kyros.  The 
most  important  one  for  the  point  now  under  exami- 
nation is  the  famous  RocK  OF  Behistun  or  BlSU- 
TUN,  or  rather  the  inscription  engraved  on  that  rock 
by  Dareios,  second  successor  of  Kyros,  and  after 
him  the  greatest  of  the  Akhsemenians.  The  rock, 
noticed  from  very  ancient  times  on  account  of  its 
isolated  position  and  peculiar  shape,  rises  nearly 
perpendicular  to  a  height  of  1 700  feet,  the  most 
striking  feature  of  the  road  from  Hamadan  (ancient 
Agbatana)  to  Baghdad,  and  near  the  modern  town 
of  KiRMANSHAH.  On  the  straightest  and  smoothest 
face  of  the  rock  Dareios  determined  to  perpetuate, 
by  means  of  sculpture  and  writing,  the  great  deeds 
of   his  reign.     The  monument  was  to  be  absolutely 

*  Tintir, — the  most  ancient  name  of  Babylon,  in  the  Accadian,  or 
pre -Semitic  period  ;   see  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  216. 


284  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

indestructible,  and,  first  of  all,  inaccessible  to  the 
sacrilegious  hand  of  invader  or  domestic  foe.  This 
was  so  well  secured  by  the  height  at  which  the  work 
was  executed — over  300  feet  from  the  base, — that 
it  could  be  scarcely  got  at  for  the  purpose  of  study- 
ing or  copying  it.  Indeed,  the  French  scholars, 
Messrs.  Flandin  and  Coste,  after  many  attempts,  gave 
up  the  task,  which  it  was  the  glory  of  Sir  Henry — 
then  Major — Rawlinson,  with  the  help  of  field-glasses 
successfully  to  achieve,  at  the  cost  of  three  years' 
labor  (1844- 1 847) — infinite  hardships  and  dangers, 
and  an  outlay  of  over  five  thousand  dollars.  How 
the  artists  and  engravers  originally  ever  got  to  the 
place,  is  a  question  which  the  steepness  of  the  ascent 
makes  very  puzzling,  unless  there  were  some  prac- 
ticable paths  which  were  cut  away  subsequently; 
and  even  then  they  could  not  have  worked  without 
ladders  and  scaffoldings.  Besides,  the  rock  had  to 
undergo  an  elaborate  preliminary  preparation.  Not 
only  was  the  surface  smoothed  down  almost  to  a  state 
of  polish,  but  wherever  the  stone  showed  crevices  or 
dints,  it  was  closely  plastered  with  a  kind  of  cement, 
matcliing  and  fitting  it  so  exactly  as  to  be  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable. The  result  of  all  this  foresight  and 
painstaking,  we  have  before  us  in  the  shape  of  a  very 
remarkable  piece  of  historical  sculpture,  surrounded 
by  numerous  columns  of  inscription,  making  in  all 
over  one  thousand  lines  of  cuneiform  writing.  The 
long  narrative  is  repeated  three  times  in  the  different 
languages,  so  as  to  be  intelligible  to  all  the  three  races 
which  the  new  empire  had  united  under  its  rule  :  in 
Persian,  in  Assyrian,  and  in  the  language  of  Anshan, 
which  was   probably  that  of  all  Elam, — or  Susiana, 


286  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

as  the  country  began  to  be  called  from  its  capital 
Shushan  or  Susa, — and  possibly  of  the  un-Aryan  pop- 
ulation of  the  entire  Zagros  region.  For  this  lan- 
guage has  been  shown  to  belong  neither  to  the 
Aryan  nor  to  the  Semitic,  but  to  the  Turanian  or 
agglutinative  type.  It  used  at  first  to  be  called 
"  Proto-Median,"  /.  c,  "  earliest  Median,"  but  now  it 
is  proposed  to  call  it  "  Scythic,"  i.  e.,  Turanian,  or 
"  Amardian,"  in  compliment  to  the  nation  who  is 
thought  to  have  inhabited  Anshan.  This  immense 
monument  of  human  pride,  labor,  and  patience  was 
attributed  by  the  Greeks,  like  every  thing  out  of  the 
common  in  these  parts  of  Asia,  and  in  a  distorted 
form,  to  the  mythical  queen  Semiramis.* 

1 8.  The  Persian  kings,  succeeding,  as  they  did, 
long  lines  of  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  monarchs, 
appropriated  their  literary  style,  which  henceforth 
became  the  set  and  invariable  form  of  Oriental  pub- 
lic speaking  and  writing.  This  style  we  accord- 
ingly recognize  in  the  trilingual  Behistun  inscription, 
with  perhaps  just  a  shade  less  of  stiffness.  Like 
Kyros,  like  every  long-descended  prince,  Dareios 
(DaRAYAVUSH  is  the  Persian  form),  begins  by  estab- 
lishing his  genealogy : 

"  I  am  Dareios  the  great  king,  the  king  of  kings,  the  king  of 
Persia,  the  king  of  nations,  the  son  of  Hystaspes,  the  grandson  of 
Arsames,  the  Akhaemenian. 

"  Says  Dareios  the  king  :  My  father  was  Hystaspes  (Vishtaspa)  ;  of 
Hystaspes  the  father  was  Arsames  (Arshama)  ;  of  Arsames  the  father 
was  Ariaramnes  (Ariyaramana);  of  Ariaramnes  the  father  was  Teispes 
(Chishpaish);   of  Teispes  the  father  was  Akha^menes  (Hakhamanish). 

"  Says  Dareios  the  king  :  On  that  account  we  are  called  Akhae- 
menians.  From  ancient  times  we  have  descended  ;  from  ancient 
times  our  family  have  been  kings. 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  198. 


MEDIA    AND  THE   RISE    OF  PERSIA.  28/ 

"  Says  Dareios  the  king  :  There  are  eight  of  my  race  wlio  have 
been  kings  before  me  ;  I  am  the  ninth.  In  a  double  line  tue  have 
been  A'tngs." 

The  Behistun  inscription  was  known  and  deci- 
phered long  before  the  discovery  of  the  cyHnders  of 
Nabonidus  and  Kyros.  Therefore  the  last  words  of 
the  above  passage  (printed  in  italics),  were  found  so 
extremely  puzzling,  that  the  decipherers  entertained 
great  doubts  about  it,  and  intimated  by  the  sign  (?) 
that  they  considered  the  translation  uncertain  and 
provisional.  By  comparing  the  whole  passage,  how- 
ever, with  the  corresponding  one  from  Kyros'  pro- 
clamation, given  above  (p.  282),  we  shall  at  once  see 
how  beautifully  the  two  complete  each  other :  each 
of  the  kings  traces  his  separate  line  upwards,  till 
both  unite  in  their  common  ancestor,  Tei'spes,  the 
conqueror  or  annexer  of  Anshan.  Evidently  he  di- 
vided his  kingdom  between  his  two  sons,  Kyros  I. 
and  Ariaramnes,  at  his  death,  and  the  Akhasmenian 
house  continued  to  reign  "  in  two  lines," — one  in  An- 
shan, and  one  in  Persia  proper.  And  in  numbering 
those  of  the  race  who  were  kings  before  him,  Dareios 
clearly  includes  those  of  the  Anshan  line.  This 
gives  the  following  genealogical  scheme  : 

1.  Akh^menes,  founder  of  the 

I  Persian  royahy 

2.  TeIspes,  annexer  of  Anshan. 


Line  of  Anshan  ;    3.   Kyros  I.        Line  of  Persia  ;    4.   Ariaramnes. 
5.  Kambyses  L  6.  Arsames. 

Kyros  ILi™''^^^"^^^'-:" 
id     Persia     to 


(^    e     rea  )  ^  ^j^^  exclusion  of         (Hystaspes), 

fends  the  An- 

Q    T  .,.„,, ^..^  TT    l^hanorelder 
8.  KamhysesII.-;  ,.  ,    . 

line    and    is 

succeeded  by  9.  Dareios. 


288  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

Had  Hystaspes  reigned,  Dareios  would  have  been 
tJic  tenth.  But  lie  expressly  states  that  eight  of  his 
race  reigned  before  him,  and  he  is  the  ninth.  On 
the  other  hand,  Hystaspes  is  never  given  the  title  of 
king  in  the  numerous  inscriptions  recording  the 
genealogy  of  Dareios  and  his  descendants  on  the 
walls  of  their  palaces  at  the  royal  city  of  Persepolis. 
These  two  indications  converge  to  the  conclusion 
that  Kyros,  before  he  overthrew  the  Median  Empire 
and  started  on  his  career  of  conquest,  established 
himself  as  king  of  both  Anshan  and  the  ancestral 
country — Persia,  to  the  exclusion  of  Hystaspes,  who 
would  seem  to  have  submitted  with  a  good  grace, 
since  history  shows  him  an  honored  and  trusted 
kinsman  and  councillor  at  the  court  of  Kyros  and 
governor  of  an  important  province,  Hyrcania.  When 
the  elder  line  became  extinct  in  the  person  of  Kam- 
byses,  the  son  of  Kyros  the  Great,  the  nearest  and 
natural  claimant  was  Hystaspes,  the  representative 
of  the  younger  line,  but  he  appears  to  have  been 
a  singularly  unambitious  person,  for  we  again  find 
him  passed  by,  this  time  in  favor  of  his  son,  who 
reigns  long  and  gloriously,  while  he  is  content  to 
command  some  of  that  son's  armies. 

We  have  been  forced  to  anticipate  considerably  in 
order  to  establish  our  authorities  for  a  narrative  con- 
flicting in  many  points  with  the  course  of  events 
universally  accepted  until  very  lately.  We  will  now 
resume  it  at  the  next  authentic  move — the  fall  of 
the  Median  Empire. 


p 

^^ 

^^M 

M 

XL 

"  KURUSH   THE    KING,   THE    AKHyEMENIAN." 

I.  Of  the  three  cyh'nders  mentioned  on  p.  281, 
and  the  one  broufjht  over  by  Mr.  H.  Ras-      Fail  of  the 

^  -^  .        Median  Em- 

sam,  which  surpasses  both  the  others  in  pire,  549  b.c. 
importance  as  an  historical  document,  contains  the 
annals  of  the  reign  of  Nabonidus,  last  king  of  Baby- 
lon, and  the  capture  of  Babylon  by  Kyros.  In  the 
second  column  we  read  as  follows: 

".  .  .  Against  Kurash  (Kyros),  king  of  Anshan,  came  Ish. 
Ishtuvegu's  (Astyages')  army  revolted  against  him,  cap- 
tured him  and  delivered  him  over  to  Kurash.  Kurash  (marched) 
into  the  land  of  Agamtunu  (Agbatana),  the  royal  city.  He  took 
silver,  gold,  furniture,  valuables  ;  from  Agamtunu  he  carried  off  all 
and  brought  to  Anshan  the  treasure  and  goods  which  he  had 
captured." 

Further  on  Kyros  is  once  named  "  KHng  of  Persia." 

This  cylinder  was  written  in  the  reign   of  Kyros  as 

king  of  Babylon.     Another,  known  more  especially 

as  "the  Nabonidus  Cylinder,"  and  somewhat  earlier 

in  date,  alludes  more  briefly  to  the  same  event.* 

"  .  ,  .  He  (the  god  Marduk)  caused  Kurash,  king  of  Anshan, 
his  young  servant,  to  go  with  his  little  army.  He  overthrew  the 
widespread  Sabinanda  "  ("  barbarians,"  a  name  here  given  to  the 
Medes),  "  he  captured  Ishtuvegu,  king  of  Sabmanda,  and  took  his 
treasure  to  his  own  land." 

*  This  is  the  famous  cylinder  which  helped  to  establish  the  date 
of  the  first  Sargon  of  Agade,      See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  213. 


290  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

2.  All  this  thoroughly  confirms  one  portion  of  the 
narrative  as  it  stands  in  Herodotus.  According  to 
him,  Kyros,  having  spent  part  of  his  youth  at  the 
court  of  Astyages,  had  formed  a  party  for  himself 
among  the  Medes,  headed  by  a  certain  HarpagOS 
(a  great  lord,  and  kinsman  of  the  king),  with  whom 
he  corresponded,  and  by  whose  advice  he  was  guided 
when  he  incited  the  Persians  to  open  revolt.  This 
he  is  said  to  have  done  by  appealing  to  their  national 
pride  and  saying  to  them,  in  substance  :  "  Follow  my 
bidding  and  be  free.  For  myself,  I  feel  that  I  am 
destined  by  Providence  to  undertake  your  liberation  ; 
and  you,  I  am  sure,  are  no  whit  inferior  to  the  Medes 
in  any  thing,  least  of  all  in  bravery."  It  is  not  at  all 
unlikely  that  he  increased  the  ardor  of  his  compara- 
tively penurious  countrymen  by  holding  out  to  them 
the  prospect  of  securing  wealth  and  the  delights  of 
luxury.  "  The  Persians,"  continues  Herodotus, 
"  who  had  long  been  impatient  of  the  Median 
dominion,  now  that  they  had  found  a  leader,  were 
delighted  to  sjiake  off  the  yoke."  Astyages  immedi- 
ately sent  out  an  army  against  the  rebels,  but  as  it 
was  commanded  by  Harpagos,  the  result  can  be 
guessed  :  "  When  the  two  armies  met  and  engaged, 
only  a  few  of  the  Medes  who  were  not  in  the  secret 
fought ;  others  deserted  openly  to  the  Persians ; 
while  the  greater  number  counterfeited  fear  and 
fled."  Kyros  thereupon  marched  to  Agbatana  ;  the 
old  king  came  out  to  meet  him  with  a  hastily  sum- 
moned body  of  citizens,  both  young  and  old,  but  was 
utterly  defeated  and  taken  prisoner.  "  Thus,  after  a 
reign  of  thirty-five  years,  Astyages  lost  his  crown, 


"  KURUSH,   THE  KING,   THE  AKH^MENIAN."      29I 

and  the  Medes  were  brought  under  the  rule  of  the 
Persians."  He  was  not  beloved,  and  was  accused  of 
having  caused  the  disaster  by  his  cruel  and  tyranni- 
cal ways.  Still  Kyros,  who  was  by  nature  magnani- 
mous and  mild,  did  his  royal  captive  no  injury,  but 
kept  him  at  his  court  until  his  death,  honorably 
treated  and  amply  provided  for.*  This  revolution 
took  place  in  549  B.C.  The  Median  Empire,  count- 
ing from  the  fall  of  Nineveh,  had  lasted  fifty-seven 
years. 

3.  So  far  the  narrative  of  Herodotus  is  proved  by 
contemporary  monuments  to  be  correct ;  but  only  in 
portions  and  in  substance.  The  details  are  histori- 
cally as  worthless  as  the  Greek  stories  about  Semir- 
amis,  and  evidently  derived  from  the  same  source 
— Median  and  Persian  epic  ballads,  largely  mixed 
with  myth.  This  narrative,  too  widely  known  to  be 
ignored,  must  be  briefly  touched  upon,  even  at  the 
risk  of  spoiling  by  condensation  one  of  the  most 
entertaining  and  best-told  stories  in  the  world.  The 
only  touch  of  reality  about  it  is  the  statement  that 
Astyages  had  no  son,  which,  however,  immediately 
branches  off  into  folk-lore.  First  of  all  the  king  has 
a  dream,  which  the  Magi  interpret  as  meaning  that 
the  son  of  his  daughter  MandaNE  would  rule  the 
whole  of  Asia,  whereupon  he  marries  her  away  from 
his  court  to  a  Persian  named  Kambyses,  a  private 
man,  "  of  good  family,  indeed,  but  of  a  quiet  temper, 
whom  he  looked  on  as  much  inferior  to  a  Mede  of 
even  middle  condition."  In  consequence  of  another 
dream,  he  sends  for  Mandane,  so  as  to  have  her  and 
*  See  Herodotus,  Book  I.,  123-130. 


292  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

her  child  in  his  power,  and  when  that  child,  the  little 
Kyros,  is  born,  the  king  immediately  orders  his  kins- 
man and  trusty  servant  Harpagos  to  carry  him  to  his 
home  and  slay  him.  Harpagos  has  not  the  heart  to 
do  the  cruel  thing  himself,  but  makes  over  the  babe 
to  one  of  the  royal  herdsmen,  whose  range  of  pasture- 
land  lay  among  mountains  infested  with  wild  beasts, 
with  the  order  to  expose  him  "  in  the  wildest  part  of 
the  hills,  where  he  should  be  sure  to  die  speedily." 
The  herdsman's  wife,  whose  own  babe  had  just  died, 
persuaded  her  husband  to  exchange  the  two,  and 
three  days  later  the  dead  child,  arrayed  in  all  the 
other's  costly  attire,  is  shown  to  the  men  sent  by 
Harpagos,  while  the  royal  infant  is  brought  up  by 
the  herdsman's  wife,  whose  name  is  Spaka  (which 
means  "  bitch,  female  dog  "),  as  her  own  and  under 
an  assumed  name. 

4.  When  he  reached  his  tenth  year  Kyros  made 
himself  conspicuous  by  his  masterful  ways  among 
his  comrades,  with  whom  he  used  to  play  at  being 
their  king,  making  them  obey  him  in  real  earnest 
and  punishing  severely  any  act  of  insubordination. 
This  led  to  complaints  from  the  parents  of  the  other 
boys,  some  of  whom  were  of  noble  birth  and  resent- 
ed the  supposed  little  plebeian's  insolence,  and  the 
matter  ended  by  being  brought  before  the  king,  who 
had  Kyros  and  his  playfellows  summoned  to  his 
presence.  Something  in  the  demeanor  of  the  boy, 
his  free  and  haughty  manner  of  answering  questions 
and  accusations,  a  certain  family  likeness,  too, 
roused  Astyages'  suspicions,  and  the  herdsman  was 
easily    frightened    into    confession.     Astyages,  who 


"  KURUSH,   THE   KING,    THE   AKHyEMENIAN."     293 

had  taken  a  liking  to  his  grandson,  was  sincerely 
glad  that  he  should  turn  up  alive,  and  sent  him  home 
to  Persia,  to  his  father  and  mother,  having  first  taken 
the  advice  of  the  Magi,  who  were  of  opinion  that, 
the  boy  having  been  king  in  play,  the  dreams  had 
been  literally  fulfilled,  and  there  was  no  further 
danger.  But  not  therefore  was  Harpagos  forgiven 
for  his  breach  of  trust.  Cruel  and  revengeful  as  he 
was,  Astyages  dissembled  his  anger  under  a  great 
show  of  friendliness,  and  bade  his  kinsman  send  his 
son  to  the  palace  as  attendant  to  the  newly  found 
prince,  and  to  come  to  supper  that  evening  himself. 
The  meat  placed  before  Harpagos  was  the  flesh  of 
his  own  child,  whose  hands  and  feet  and  head  were 
presented  to  him  in  a  basket  after  he  had  eaten. 
He  made  no  sign,  but  from  that  moment  secretly 
worked  against  the  king,  alienating  from  him  the 
great  Median  nobles  and  preparing  the  general  fall- 
ing off  in  favor  of  Kyros,  with  whom  he  communi- 
cated as  soon  as  the  boy  was  old  enough.  From 
this  point  the  narrative,  as  given  above,  is  in  the 
main  correct,  though  not  free  from  fanciful  em- 
bellishments. 

5.  So  Herodotus  knows  nothing  of  Kyros'  royal 
parentage  on  the  father's  side.  This  at  once  sug- 
gests Median  informants.  It  would  be  soothing  to 
the  vanity  of  the  conquered  people,  even  after  they 
had  long  accepted  the  new  ruler  and  lived  prosperous 
under  him  and  his  descendants,  to  connect  him  with 
their  own  royal  house,  thus  creating  an  hereditary 
claim  for  him  on  their  own  side,  and  taking  the  bit- 
terest sting  from  conquest— submission  to  a  stranger 


294  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

and  foreigner, — and  at  the  same  time  looking  down 
on  Jiis  father  as  being  "  much  inferior  to  a  Mede  of 
even  middle  condition  !  "  But  the  inconsistencies 
which  grow  out  of  this  perversion  of  facts  are  v&xy 
glaring.  This  objection,  for  one,  is  unanswerable: 
if  Kyros  was  Astyages'  natural  heir,  as  this  story 
makes  him  out  to  be,  why  should  the  old  king  be  in- 
censed at  the  prospect  of  his  accession  to  power,  to 
the  extent  of  seeking  his  life  ?  Is  it  not  unnatural 
to  madness  for  him  to  cut  off  his  own  line,  contrary 
to  the  instinct  common  to  all  mankind,  let  alone 
sovereigns,  who  are  always  so  ambitious  to  found  or 
continue  dynasties,  that  they  are  much  more  likely 
to  supply  the  want  of  heirs  by  adoption,  or  even 
fraud,  than  to  destroy  those  given  them  by  nature? 
As  to  the  story  of  Kyros'  exposure,  providential 
escape,  and  obscure  bringing  up,  it  is  an  old,  old  bit 
of  Aryan  folk-lore,*  which  has  been  told  various 
times  of  almost  every  national  hero.  Of  course 
every  nation  that  rej)eats  it  stamps  it  with  some 
national  peculiarity.  In  its  application  to  Kyros, 
we  detect  the  Eranian  touch  in  the  name  of  the 
woman,  Spaka.  The  7eal  story  was  that  the  child 
was  saved  and  suckled  by  a  dog,  Ahura-Mazda's  own 
sacred  animal  (sec  pp.  1 39-141),  to  intimate  miracu- 
lous preservation,  divine  protection.  Indeed  He- 
rodotus in  one  place  tells  us  as  much.  But  the 
Greeks,  who  had  not  the  remotest  comprehension  of 
their   own    myths,    let    alone    other    people's,    were 

*  Not  confined  to  the  Aryan  race,  however,  but  turning  up  also  in 
the  treasury  of  Semitic  tradition.  Compare  the  legends  of  the  first 
Sargon  of  Agade  ("  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  205,  206),  and  of  Moses. 


''  KURUSH,   THE   KING,   THE   AKHJEMENIAN."      295 

shocked  by  the  absurdity  of  the  statement,  and  ex- 
plained it  away  in  the  manner  we  have  seen.  * 

6.  There  were  several  other  versions  of  the  story 
of  Kyros'  youth.  They  have  been  retailed  by  vari- 
ous Greek  writers,  without  any  attempt  at  criticism, 
and  do  not  appear  much  more  reliable  than  that 
selected  by  Herodotus,  except  only  that  the  miracu- 
lous element  is  wanting,  f  They  all  agree  in  making 
him  a  resident  at  the  Median  court  during  his  boy- 
hood and  early  youth,  and  one  makes  him  a  Mardian 
(or  Amardian),  thus  unconsciously  coming  near  the 
truth  as  concerning  his  connection  with  Anshan  (see 
p.  280),  of  which,  however,  not  one  of  these  com- 
pilers knows  any  thing,  any  more  than  of  his  sup- 
posed relationship  to  Astyages.  One  of  these  ver- 
sions gives  an  exceedingly  probable  account  of  his 
proceedings  after  his  victory.  Astyages,  this  inform- 
ant tells  us,  had  one  daughter,  Amytis  (not  Man- 
dane),  and  she  was  married  to  a  noble  Mede  of  the 
name  of  Spitama,  who  thus  found  himself  heir  to 
the  throne.  This  dangerous  claimant  Kyros  put  to 
death  when  he  had  made  himself  master  of  Agbatana 
and  the  royal  family,  but  spared  his  two  sons  and 
treated  the  princess  with  every  respect,  then  took 
her  to  wife,  thus  transferring  her  claim  to  himself. 

*  This  is  the  passage  in  "  Herodotus  "  :  "  So  it  happened  that  his 
parents,  catching  the  name"  (his  nurse's),  "  and  wishing  to  persuade 
the  Persians  that  there  was  a  special  providence  in  his  preservation, 
spread  the  report  that  Kyros,  when  he  was  exposed,  was  suckled  by 
a  bitch.  This  was  the  sole  origin  of  the  rumor."  It  was  the  reverse 
that  was  really  the  case, 

•  f  "  I  know  three  ways  in  which  the  story  of  Kyros  is  told,  all  dif- 
fering from  my  own  narrative." — Herodotus,  I.,  95. 


296  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

As  to  the  old  king,  he  honored  him  as  a  father,  and 
made  him  Satrap  (governor)  of  Hyrcania.  There  is 
a  tradition  that  the  king  of  Armenia,  TiGRANES  I., 
a  monarch  with  whom  began  a  long  and  famous  line, 
aided  Kyros  in  his  revolt,  although  his  own  sister 
had  lately  become  second  wife  to  Astyages.  Ar- 
menian historians  add  that  the  perfidious  old  Mede 
had  invited  his  new  brother-in-law  to  visit  him,  with 
the  intent  of  murdering  him,  but  that  Tigranes  was 
warned  in  time  by  his  sister.  It  is  further  reported 
that  it  was  on  this  occasion  Tigranes,  who  always  re- 
mained Kyros'  devoted  friend  and  ally,  adopted  the 
Zoroastrian  religion  and  introduced  it  into  Armenia. 
This  report  must  be  taken  for  what  it  may  be  worth, 
as  there  is  no  evidence  that  could  be  called  proof,  to 
confirm  it.  It  may  have  been  owing  to  the  Ar- 
menian alliance  that  Kyros  within  the  next  two 
years  extended  his  rule  westward  as  far  as  the  Halys 
— /.  e.,  to  the  farthest  boundary  of  the  Median  Em- 
pire on  the  western  side.  He  does  not  seem  to  have 
encountered  much  resistance  in  this  quarter,  as 
Herodotus  merely  remarks :  "  The  Cappadocians 
submitted  to  Kyros,  after  having  been  subject  to 
the  Medes."  There  is  a  tradition  to  the  effect  that 
the  king  of  Cappadocia  was  married  to  a  sister  of 
Kambyses,  the  father  of  Kyros ;  but  it  may  have 
been  an  invention,  to  give  a  plausible  and  creditable 
color  to  his  submission. 

7.  We  do  not  know  how  much  time  and  labor 
Kyros  expended  on  the  countries  of  Eastern  Eran 
that  made  up  so  important  a  portion  of  the  Median 
inheritance    which    he    claimed    and    systematically 


"  KURUSH.    THE  KING,   THE  AKHMMENIAN."      297 

gathered  under  his  rule.  It  is  probable  that  their 
reduction  and  the  necessity  of  keeping  them  in  a 
state  of  submission  provided  him  with  occupation 
for  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  that  at  intervals  between 
the  acts  of  the  great  undertakings  in  the  West,  to 
which  his  ambition  chiefly  inclined  him,  he  may  have 
personally  headed  an  expedition  into  the  East  and 
North-east.  It  would  be  as  vain  as  unprofitable  to 
try  and  follow  the  fortunes  of  all  the  obscure  nations 
— Bactrians,  Sogdians,  Chorasmians,  Hyrcanians, 
Saki  (z.  e.,  Scythians,  Aryan  and  Turanian,)  etc., 
who  are  little  more  than  names  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  In  his  treatment  of  them,  as  in  all  other  re- 
spects, Kyros  showed  himself  superior  to  all  the  con- 
querors the  world  had  yet  seen.  He  is  said  to  have 
left  it  to  the  peoples  he  subdued  to  fix  the  figure 
and  nature  of  the  tribute  they  were  able  and  willing 
to  pay. 

8.  His  just  and  mild  rule  soon  reconciled  the 
Medes  to  the  change  of  masters,  and  he  made  spe- 
cial efTorts  to  secure  their  devotion.  He  never  for- 
got, indeed,  that  his  first  favor  and  duty  was  owing 
to  his  own  people,  the  Persians,  and  made  it  under- 
stood at  once  that  they  were  to  be  the  first  in  the 
new  empire,  by  exempting  them  from  tribute  and 
selecting  his  generals  and  Satraps  (governors)  from 
their  number,  besides  having  his  choicest  troops 
composed  of  Persians.  His  chief  wife,  his  queen,  was 
herself  an  Akhaemenian  ;  her  name,  as  given  by  the 
Greeks,  was  Kassandane  ;  she  is  frequently  spoken 
of  as  a  woman  of  great  mental  power  and  real  influ- 
ence,    Kyros  was  deeply  attached  to  her,  and  when 


298  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

she  died,  caused  "  a  great  mourning  "  to  be  made  for 
her  throughout  the  empire.  But  the  second  place 
was  ungrudgingly  allotted  to  the  Mcdes.  After  the 
first  excitement  of  war  and  victory,  they  were  never 
treated  as  a  conquered  nation,  but  as  a  brother-peo- 
ple. In  war  and  in  peace,  In  the  army  and  the  coun- 
cil, in  attendance  on  the  royal  person,  they  always 
come  next  to  the  Persians  ;  indeed  we  find  Medians 
entrusted  with  important  military  commands  scarcely 
ten  years  after  the  fall  of  the  Median  Empire.  Unity 
of  race  and,  to  a  great  extent,  of  language  and  religion 
must  have  largely  contributed  to  this  result,  which, 
however,  might  not  have  been  as  easily  achieved 
under  a  monarch  less  temperate  and  judicious  than 
Kyros  proved  himself  throughout.  If  he  really  did 
marry  the  daughter  of  Astyages,  the  connection 
must  have  helped  to  smooth  matters,  though  the 
Median  princess  never  could  claim  precedence  over 
the  Persian  one,  the  two  queens  faithfully  represent- 
ing in  their  relative  position  that  of  their  respective 
countries.  Still  the  fusion  was  so  complete  as  to 
become  invisible  to  the  eyes  of  foreigners,  who  speak 
of  "the  Medes  and  Persians"  jointly,  as  of  one 
people,  not  infrequently  using  one  name  for  the 
other. 

9.  It  has  been  asked :  What  was  the  capital  of  the 
Persian  Empire  ?  and  it  is  a  question  not  easy  to 
answer.  In  reality,  there  were  several,  according 
as  the  kings  resided  in  the  royal  city  of  this 
or  that  of  the  countries  which  composed  the 
empire.  Kyros,  indeed,  true  to  his  nation  and  an- 
cestry,   apparently    conferred    this    dignity    on    his 


-j^M 


40.     GATE-PILLAR  OF  KYROS    PALACE  AT  PASARGAD.^,  WITH  INSCRIP- 
TION :    "  I  AM  KURUSH.  THE  KING,  THE  AKH/EMENIAN." 


30O  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

own  clan-cit}-  Pasargad.-E.  He  built  a  palace 
there,  and  a  treasury,  and  his  body  rested  there 
in  death.  A  great  sacredness  attached  to  the  place 
in  consequence,  and  every  Akhaemenian  king  went 
there  for  his  inauguration.  But  it  did  not  possess 
the  conditions  that  go  to  make  a  thriving,  popu- 
lous centre,  and  became  neglected  as  a  residence. 
It  is  now  represented  by  a  knot  of  ruins,  not  very 
striking  or  numerous,  in  the  valley  of  MURGHAB, 
watered  by  the  PULWAR,  a  scant  and  insignificant 
stream,  formerly  named  after  the  great  king  himself, 
Kyros  ;  it  is  uninteresting  and  short-lived,  as  most 
watercourses  of  this  arid  region,  and  after  receiving 
a  single  tributary,  ends  in  a  salt  lake.  A  few  trun- 
cated columns,  and  many  more  bases  without  col- 
umns, a  few  gate-pillars,  and  a  platform  with  a  casing 
of  very  fine  stone  masonry,  are  all  that  remains  of 
these  constructions.  Interesting  as  they  are,  they 
are  eclipsed  by  two  relics  which  appeal  more  power- 
fully to  the  fancy  of  the  beholder:  one  is  a  square, 
isolated,  and  very  massive  stone  pillar,  bearing  a  bas- 
relief  representing  a  human  figure  with  four  unfolded 
wings  and  a  most  peculiar  head-dress  (see  ill.  41).  That 
this  strange  figure  is  meant  for  Kyros  is  placed  be- 
yond doubt  by  the  inscription  which  we  read  at  some 
height  above  its  head.  But  there  is  some  reasonable 
doubt  as  to  whether  it  was  intended  for  the  living 
king,  or  rather  for  an  ideal  representation  of  his  glor- 
ified Fravashi  after  death.  The  other  relic  is  the  great 
king's  tomb,  or  rather  grave-chamber,  which  stands 
well  preserved,  but  open  and  empty,  on  its  base  of 
seven    retreating  stages   or  high   steps,   all   of  solid 


41.    BAS-RELIEF   REPRESENTING   KYROS,  OR   POSSIBLY  HIS   GLORIFIEU 

FRAVASHI,     WITH    TRILINGUAL    INSCRIPTION    ABOVE:      "l     AM 

KURUSH,  THE   KING,   THE  AKH.-EMENIAN."    (Pasargadte.) 


302 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 


blocks  of  white  marble,  surrounded  by  fragments  of 
what  evidently  was  once  a  colonnade.  The  monu- 
ment was  found  intact  by  Alexander  of  Macedon, 
who  visited  it.  His  historians  describe  it  as  "  a  house 
upon  a  pedestal,"  with  a  door  so  narrow  (it  is  more- 
over only  four  feet  high)  that  a  man  could  scarcely 
squeeze  through.    The  gilt  sarcophagus,  we  are  told, 


•  42-    TOMB   OF  KYROS  AT  PASARGADiE. 

(Entire  height,  36  feet  ;    height  of  chamber  or  chapel,  7  feet ;   area,  7  by   ic^ 
feet  ;    thickness  of  walls,  5  feet") 

stood  by  a  couch  with  feet  of  massive  gold,  covered 
with  purple-dyed  draperies,  and  the  walls  were  hung 
with  Babylonian  tapestries.  Suits  of  clothes  were  also 
found,  of  costly  material  and  workmanship.  There 
was,  besides,  a  table  on  which  were  deposited  vari- 
ous precious  relics — Persian  weapons,  some  jewels, 
the  king's  own  bow,  shield,  and  sword.  The  inscrip- 
tion was  brief  and  simple  :    "  O  man  !  I  am  Kurush, 


''  JCURUSH,    THE  KING,    THE   AKHyEMENIAN."      303 

the  son  of  Kambujiya,  who  founded  the  greatness 
of  Persia,  and  ruled  Asia.  Grudge  me  not  this 
monument."  Inside  the  inclosure  was  a  small 
house,  occupied  by  some  Magi,  who  received  an  am- 
ple daily  allowance  of  provisions,  and  whose  duty  it 
was  to  guard  the  place  and  keep  it  in  order.  The 
office  had  been  first  instituted  by  Kambyses,  the  son 
of  Kyros,  and  was  hereditary.  When  Alexander 
returned  to  Pasargadae  from  his  unsuccessful  expedi- 
tion to  India,  he  found  the  noble  shrine  desecrated 
and  plundered,  the  'sarcophagus  gone,  and  could  do 
nothing  but  give  orders  to  repair  the  monument,  and 
restore  it,  at  least  outwardly,  to  a  decent  and  seemly 
condition. 

10.  The  ruins  of  Pasargadae  are  the  most  ancient 
monuments  we  have  of  Persian  art,  and  the  merest 
glance  at  them  suffices  to  show  that  it  was,  from 
first  to  last,  and  in  its  very  essence,  imitative,  with 
the  single  exception  of  the  Aryan  principle  of  build- 
ing, consisting  in  the  profuse  use  of  columns.  As 
the  Persians,  fortunately,  used  stone,  their  monu- 
ments have  survived,  while  nothing  is  left  of  the 
Median  constructions,  which  were  of  wood.  These 
monuments  show  traces  of  the  influence  of  every 
country  they  have  known  or  conquered.  Had  we  no 
other  specimen  of  Persian  sculpture  than  that  bas- 
relief  (ill.  41),  we  should  be  justified  in  declaring  it 
to  be  imitated  from  Assyrian  models  ;  even  the  close- 
fitting  fringed  robe  betrays  the  originals  from  which 
the  Persian  artist  copied.  As  to  the  head-dress,  it 
is  one  frequently  seen  on  the  brow  of  Egyptian 
divinities  and  royalties,  while  the  massive  pillar  itself 


304  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

is  a  clumsy  imitation  of  an  Assyrian  stele.  That  the 
Tomb  of  Kyros  (ill.  42)  reproduces,  on  a  small  scale 
and  in  different  material,  the  Assyro-Babylonian 
Ziggurat  is  too  obvious  to  need  demonstration, 
while  the  chapel  is  distinctly  Greek  in  design,  and 
what  little  remains  of  Kyros'  own  constructions, 
shows  that  he  employed  Greek  artists  from  the  col- 
onies on  the  sea-shore  :  the  column-bases  are  exactly 
like  those  found  in  the  ruins  of  some  Ionian  tem- 
ples, and  the  masonry  of  the  great  platform  recalls 
early  Greek  wall-masonry  (see'  ill.  29).  We  shall 
soon  become  acquainted  with  far  more  numerous, 
imposing,  and  elaborate  monuments  of  Persian  art, 
but  shall  find  nothing,  even  in  its  most  beautiful 
productions,  to  reverse  the  verdict  of  lack  of  origi- 
nality which  was  pronounced  on  that  art  as  soon  as 
it  was  discovered. 

II.  But,  to  return  to  the  political  world  of  West- 
ern Asia,  which  we  left  unheeded  for  years  to  follow 
the  rising  star  of  Persia.  With  Kyros  still  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Halys,  the  balance  of  power,  es- 
tablished after  the  Battle  of  the  Eclipse  (see  pp.  220- 
222),  was  as  yet  unbroken,  no  changes  having  taken 
place  in  the  territorial  conditions  of  the  potentates 
who  concluded  that  memorable  agreement.  The 
greatest  of  the  three  states  in  point  of  extent  had 
merely  changed  hands  and  name:  it  was  the  Me- 
dian Empire  no  longer,  but  the  Persian,  that  was 
all.  In  546  B.C.  every  thing  was  apparently  undis- 
turbed, yet  every  thing  trembled  in  the  balance. 
For  the  men  were  no  longer  the  same.  The  petty, 
indolent,  tyrannous    Mede  had  been  forced  to  yield 


43'       SUPPOSED   TOMB   OF    KAMBYSES   I.    AT   PASARGADy*:. 
(Possibly  an  Atesh-Gah,  or  Fire-Chapel.) 


306  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

his  place  to  one  who  was  a  hero  and  a  genius,  while 
in  Babylon  the  change  was  reversed :  the  great 
Nebuchadrezzar's  sceptre  had  passed  into  feeble  and 
incapable  hands,  discord  and  civil  troubles  filled  the 
land  he  had  ruled  so  wisely  and  strongly,  and  opened 
the  way  for  the  invasion  against  which  he  had  accu- 
mulated so  many  defences.  The  fate  of  Babylon 
was  so  inevitable  that  her  dreaded  neighbor  could 
leave  her  for  the  last  while  he  attended  to  more 
pressing  business.     Lydia's  turn  was  to  come  first. 

12.  Alyattes'  long  reign  (fifty-eight  years),  ended, 
with  his  life,  in  or  about  560  B.C.  He  was  by  far 
the  wisest  and  greatest  of  the  Mermnadae, — indeed, 
so  far  as  we  know,  of  all  the  Lydian  kings.  By  suc- 
cessive conquests  and  annexations,  he  left  Lydia  the 
most  extensive  and  powerful  state  of  Asia  Minor, 
with  a  numerous  and  well-ordered  army,  especially 
formidable  from  its  trained  and  splendidly  mounted 
cavalry,  and  a  treasury  overflowing  with  wealth  of 
every  description.  He  well  deserved  the  affection 
and  reverence  of  his  people,  who  erected  to  his  mem- 
ory, at  public  cost,  the  gigantic  sepulchral  mound  or 
barrow,  a  full  half  mile  in  circumference,  which  is 
even  now  a  conspicuous  feature  of  the  plain  by  the 
Hermos,  near  the  ruins  of  Sardis.*  Herodotus  calls 
it  "a  structure  of  enormous  size,  only  inferior  to  the 
monuments  of  Egypt  and  Babylon."  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son  (some  say  grandson  f),  Kroisos, 

*  Excavations  have  repeatedly  been  made  in  the  mound  and  have 
led  to  the  discovery  of  the  sepulchral  ciiamber  (eleven  feet  long  by 
eight  broad  and  seven  high),  all  lined  with  polished  white  marble,  but 
empty,  cleaned  out  at  an  unknown  time  by  unknown  plunderers, 
for  the  sake  of  the  many  precious  things  it  doubtless  contained. 

f  See  Dr.  Victor  Floigl's  "  Cyrus  und  Herodot.,"  pp.  132-138. 


'  KURUSH,   THE  KING,   THE  AKH^MENIAN."      307 

a  brilliant  and  magnificent  prince,  of  good  parts,  of 
an  amiable  and  humane  disposition,  whose  unheard- 
of  prosperity  and  sudden  fall  have  made  him  a 
favorite  theme  with  Greek  moralists.  His  greatest 
fault  seems  to  have  been  an  exceeding  self-compla- 
cency and  an  inordinate  pride  in  the  immense  wealth 
which  have  made  his  name  a  by-word  for  all  times. 

13.  Kroisos  was  the  first  openly  to  resent  the  ele- 
vation of  Kyros,  who  was  to  him  nothing  more  than 
an  usurper.  His  motive  in  so  doing  was  a  mixed 
one,  as  very  well  indicated  by  Herodotus  :  "  He 
learnt  that  Kyros  had  destroyed  the  empire  of 
Astyages,  and  that  the  Persians  were  becoming 
daily  more  powerful.  This  led  him  to  consider 
with  himself  whether  it  were  possible  to  check  the 
growing  power  of  that  people.  .  .  ."  Further- 
more, *'  he  coveted  the  land  of  Cappadocia,  which  he 
wished  to  add  to  his  own  dominions  "  ;  and  lastly  he 
felt  called  upon  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of  his  kins- 
man. He  felt  very  sure  of  victory,  still  he  did  not 
undervalue  the  foe  on  whom  he  meditated  an  attack, 
and  cast  about  him  for  allies.  The  most  natural 
ones  were  Babylon,  who  was  threatened  by  the  same 
danger  as  himself,  and  Egypt,  who  owed  Lydia  a 
good  turn  for  the  aid  received  from  Gyges  at  the 
time  of  her  own  war  of  independence,*  although  the 
dynasty  whose  establishment  was  helped  by  that  as- 
sistance had  lately  been  overthrown  by  a  revolution. 
An  upstart  usurper,  a  mere  army  officer,  of  the  name 
of  Aahmes,  supported  by  the  soldiers  whom  he 
commanded,  had  dethroned  Hophra  (569  B.C.),  and 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  380. 


308  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

soon  after  put  him  to  death.  (The  Greeks  mispro- 
nounced his  name  Amasis,  which  form  is  the  gener- 
ally accepted  one.)  Nor  did  Kroisos  content  himself 
with  human  means  to  insure  his  success.  He  sent 
to  the  most  famous  Greek  oracles  to  inquire  what 
would  be  the  result  if  he  crossed  the  Halys  and  at- 
tacked the  Persians.  The  replies  were  encouraging, 
especially  that  of  the  Delphic  oracle.  In  the  joy 
of  his  heart,  Kroisos  overwhelmed  Apollo's  temple 
with  his  gifts — not  unmindful,  very  probably,  of  the 
god's  favorable  reply  to  the  suit  of  his  forefather 
Gyges,  but  heedless  of  the  ugly  qualifying  clause, 
and  little  thinking,  at  all  events,  that  he  was  the 
fifth  descendant  appointed  for  the  expiation  of  the 
ancestral  crime  (see  p.  189).  The  oracles  had  added 
"a  recommendation  to  look  and  see  who  were 
the  most  powerful  of  the  Greeks,  and  to  make 
alliance  with  them."  This  was  patriotic  advice,  and 
the  object  of  it — to  bring  Greece  forward  and  open 
to  her  an  influence  in  the  affairs  of  the  great  political 
world  of  the  day — an  altogether  praiseworthy  one. 
The  Spartans  were,  at  the  time,  unquestionably  the 
most  powerful  among  the  Greek  nations,  so  Kroisos 
sent  to  them  messengers  "  with  gifts  in  their  hands," 
who  informed  them  of  the  god's  bidding,  and  de- 
clared in  the  king's  name  :  "  Knowing  that  you 
hold  the  first  rank  in  Greece,  I  desire  to  become  your 
friend  in  all  true  faith  and  honesty."  The  Spartans, 
who  were,  moreover,  grateful  to  Kroisos  for  some 
substantial  favors  formerly  received  of  him,  "were 
full  of  joy  at  the  coming  of  the  messengers,  and  at 
once  took  the  oaths  of  friendship  and  alliance." 


"  KURUSH,    THE  KING,    THE  A KH ARMENIAN."      309 

14.  The  enumeration  of  Kroisos'  gifts  to  the 
Delphic  Apollo  is  too  astounding  to  be  passed 
over.  And  as  they  existed  in  the  temple  treasurieo 
and  could  be  seen  by  visitors  in  the  time  of  Herod- 
otus, he  cannot  be  taxed  with  exaggeration.  This 
is  the  passage  ; 

"  Kroisos,  having  resolved  to  propitiate  the  Delphic  god  with  a 
magnificent  sacrifice,  offered  up  three  thousand  of  every  kind  of 
sacrificial  beast,  and  l:)esides  made  a  huge  pile  and  placed  upon  it 
couches  coated  with  silver  and  with  gold,  and  golden  goblets  and 
robes  and  vests  of  purple  ;  all  of  which  he  burnt  in  the  hope  of 
thereby  making  himself  more  secure  of  the  favor  of  the  god. 
Further  he  issued  his  orders  to  all  the  people  of  the  land  to  offer  a 
sacrifice  according  to  their  means.  WJien  the  sacrifice  was  ended, 
the  king  melted  down  a  vast  quantity  of  gold  *  and  ran  it  into  ingots, 
making  them  six  palms  long,  three  palms  broad,  and  one  palm  in 
thickness.  The  number  of  ingots  was  one  hundred  and  seventeen, 
four  being  of  refined  gold,  the  others  of  pale  gold  [probably  electron, 
see  p.  216].  .  .  .  He  also  caused  a  statue  of  a  lion  [the  royal  em- 
blem of  Lydia,  see  ill.  33],  to  be  made  in  refined  gold,  the  weight 
of  which  was  ten  talents.  .  .  .  On  the  completion  of  these  works. 
Kroisos  sent  them  away  to  Delphi,  and  with  them  two  bowls  \craters'\, 
of  an  enormous  size,  one  of  gold,  the  other  of  silver,  which  used  to 
stand,  the  latter  upon  the  right,  the  former  upon  the  left  as  one  en- 
tered the  temple.  .  .  .  The  silver  one  holds  six  hundred  amphorae 
[over  5000  gallons].  .  .  .  He  sent  also  four  silver  casks  .  .  .  and 
two  lustral  vases  [for  holy  water].  .  .  .  Besides  these  various  offer- 
ings, Kroisos  sent  to  Delphi  many  others  of  less  account,  among  the 
rest  a  number  of  round  silver  vases.  Also  he  dedicated  a  female 
figure  in  gold,  three  cubits  high,  .  .  .  and  further  he  presented 
the  necklace  and  the  girdles  of  his  wife." 

15.  There  was  nothing  now  to  delay  Kroisos  in 
the  execution  of  his  cleverly  laid  plans.     If  we  are  to 

*  This  gold  must  be  understood  to  have  been  melted  down  in  the 
flames  of  the  sacrificial  pyre,  by  way  of  consecration.  On  the  cus- 
tom of  burning  large  quantities  of  precious  things  in  sacrifice,  see 
"  Story  of  Assyria,"  p.  122. 


3IO  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

believe  Herodotus,  warning  voices  were  heard  amidst 
his  own  councillors,  biddinij  him  consider  that  the 
Persians  were  poor,  and  if  he  conquered  them  he 
would  reap  no  advantages  from  his  victory,  while 
his  own  stake  was  so  tremendous  that  if  he  lost, 
nothing  would  be  left  him  to  live  for,  so  that,  far 
from  attacking  the  Persians,  he  should  be  thankful 
to  the  gods,  that  they  had  not  put  it  into  the  heads 
of  the  Persians  to  invade  Lydia.  That,  however,  is 
just  what  the  Persians  would  inevitably  have  done, 
had  not  Kroisos  been  beforehand  with  them,  and  he 
would  have  earned  great  praise  had  he  been  success- 
ful. He  had  every  reason  to  hope,  being  well  pro- 
vided with  treasure,  men,  arms,  and  allies,  and 
leaving  no  secret  enemies  or  doubtful  friends  in  his 
rear.  For  at  the  very  last  moment,  Kyros  had  sent 
heralds  to  the  Ionian  cities,  with  an  invitation  to  re- 
volt from  the  Lydian  king,  and  they  had  refused  to 
do  so.  But  as  men's  judgments  go  by  the  event, 
the  blame  of  the  disaster  which  befel  Lydia  was  laid 
entirely  on  Kroisos,  whom  historians  have  found 
fault  with,  among  other  things,  for  over-hastiness  in 
leading  his  troops  across  the  Halys  ;  yet  it  has  al- 
ways been  considered  good  tactics,  once  hostilities 
are  opened,  to  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's  terri- 
tory, and  Kyros  was  on  the  march. 

i6.  The  first  battle  was  fought  in  Cappadocia. 
"  The  combat,"  Herodotus  reports,  "  was  hot  and 
bloody  .  .  .  nor  had  victory  declared  in  favor 
of  either  party,  when  night  came  down  upon  the 
battle-field.  Thus  both  armies  fought  valiantly." 
This  result,  though   far  from   unfavorable,  seems  to 


•' KUHUSJI,   THE   KING,    THE   AKH ARMENIAN."      311 

have  dashed  the  exuberant  spirits  of  the  Lydian, 
whose  chief  mistake  was  overweening  confidence, 
and  to  have  thrown  him  into  a  confusion  and  vacil- 
lation of  which  his  adversary  was  too  great  a  general 
not  to  take  advantage.  The  tardiness  of  the  allies 
did  the  rest,  and  Kroisos,  owing  to  the  precision 
and  rapidity  of  the  Persian's  movements,  was  actu- 
ally left  alone  to  fight  out  a  war  for  which  he  had 
thought  he  could  not  provide  enough  assistants.  The 
end  came  very  quickly  ;  an  outline  of  the  event  can 
best  be  gathered  (in  short  passages)  from  Herodotus' 
leisurely  narrative  : 

"  Kroisos  laid  the  blame  of  his  ill  success  on  the  number  of  his 
troops,  which  fell  very  short  of  the  enemy  ;  and  as  on  the  next  day 
Kyros  did  not  repeat  the  attack,  he  set  off  on  his  return  to  Sardis, 
intending  to  collect  his  allies  and  renew  the  contest  in  the  spring. 
He  meant  to  call  on  the  Egyptians  to  send  him  aid  ...  he 
intended  also  to  summon  to  his  assistance  the  Babylonians  . 
and  further  he  meant  to  send  word  to  Sparta.  .  .  .  Having  got 
together  these  forces  in  addition  to  his  own,  he  would,  as  soon  as 
the  winter  was  past  and  springtime  come,  march  once  more  against 
the  Persians.  With  these  intentions  Kroisos,  immediately  on  his 
return,  despatched  heralds  to  his  various  allies,  with  a  request  that 
they  would  join  him  at  Sardis  in  the  course  of  the  fifth  month  from 
the  time  of  the  departure  of  his  messengers.  He  then  disbanded 
the  army,  consisting  of  mercenary  troops  .  .  .  never  imagining 
that  Kyros,  after  a  battle  in  which  victory  had  been  so  evenly  bal- 
anced, would  venture  to  march  upon  Sardis. 

"Kyros,  however,  when  Kroisos  broke  up  so  suddenly  from  his 
quarters  after  the  battle,  conceiving  that  he  had  marched  away  with 
the  intention  of  disbanding  his  army,  considered  a  little,  and  soon 
saw  that  it  was  advisable  for  him  to  advance  upon  Sardis  in  all 
haste,  before  the  Lydians  could  get  their  forces  together  a  second 
time.  Having  thus  determined,  he  lost  no  time  in  carrying  out  his 
plan.  He  marched  forward  with  such  speed,  that  he  was  himself 
the  first  to  announce  his  coming  to  the  Lydian  king.      That  monarch, 


312  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

placed  in  the  utmost  difficulty  by  the  turn  of  events  which  had  gone 
so  entirely  against  all  his  calculations,  nevertheless  led  out  the  Lyd- 
ians  to  battle.  In  all  Asia  there  was  not  at  that  time  a  braver  or 
more  warlike  people.  Their  manner  of  fighting  was  on  horseback  ; 
they  carried  long  lances,  and  were  clever  in  the  management  of  their 
steeds. 

"The  two  armies  met  in  the  plain  before  Sardis.  It  is  a  vast 
flat  bare  of  trees,  watered  by  a  number  of  streams,  which  all  flow 
into  one  larger  than  the  rest,  called  the  Hermos.  .  .  .  The 
combat  was  long,  but  at  last,  after  a  great  slaughter  on  both  sides, 
the  Lydians  turned  and  fled.  They  were  driven  within  their  walls, 
and  the  Persians  laid  siege  to  Sardis.* 

"  Thus  the  siege  began.  Meanwhile,  Kroisos,  thinking  that  the 
place  would  hold  out  no  inconsiderable  time,  sent  off  fresh  heralds 
to  his  allies  from  the  beleaguered  city  ...  to  say  that  he  was 
already  besieged,  and  to  beseech  them  to  come  to  his  aid  with  all 
possible  speed.  Among  his  other  allies  Kroisos  did  not  omit  to  send 
to  Lacedasmon.f  It  chanced  that  the  Spartans  were  themselves 
just  at  this  time  engaged  in  a  quarrel  .  .  .  when  the  herald  ar- 
rived from  Sardis  to  entreat  them  to  come  to  the  assistance  of  the 
besieged  king  ;  yet  notwithstanding  they  instantly  set  to  work  to 
afford  him  help.  They  had  completed  their  preparations,  and  the 
ships  were  just  ready  to  start,  when  a  second  message  informed 
them  that  the  place  had  already  fallen,  and  that  Kroisos  was  a  pris- 
oner. Deeply  grieved  at  his  misfortune,  the  Spartans  ceased  their 
efforts." 

17.  Thus  the  dynasty  of  the  Mermnadae  was  over- 
thrown, and  Lydia  ceased  to  be  a  kingdom — all  at 
one  blow.  The  fall  was  as  rapid  and  irretrievable 
as  that  of  Assyria,  but  aroused  very  different  feel- 
ings in  the  lookers  on.     Neither  Lydia  as  a  country 

*  This  is  the  battle  which  Kyros  is  said  to  have  won  by  the  cun- 
ning device  of  placing  the  camels  in  front  of  his  troops,  in  order  to 
rout  the  Lydian  cavalry — seeing  that  horses  have  a  natural  detesta- 
tion of  the  sight  and  especially  the  smell  of  camels,  which  is  over- 
come only  by  habit  and  training. 

\  Lacedsemon — another  name  for  Sparta. 


'  KURUSH,   THE   KING,   THE  AKHALMEMIAN."      313 

nor  her  rulers  personally  were  regarded  with  hatred. 
The  Mermnadae  had  been  mild  masters  and  gen- 
erous friends,  open  to  all  the  influences  of  a  refined 
and  genial  culture,  delighting  in  intercourse  with 
wise  and  accomplished  foreigners.  The  catastrophe 
which  cut  them  off  with  a  suddenness  comparable 
only  to  descending  lightning,  and  strongly  suggestive 
of  divine  judgment,  was  witnessed  by  neighbors  and 
subjects  with  silent  awe  and  feelings  made  up  in 
about  equal  parts  of  sympathy  with  the  sufferers 
and  apprehension  for  themselves, — an  awe  which  was 
heightened  by  the  grand  closing  scene  of  the  tragedy, 
which  the  Greeks  utterly  misunderstood,  and  conse- 
quently misrepresented  in  their  reports. 

18.  This  is  how  Herodotus,  Diodorus,  and  others 
relate  it,  with  but  slight  variations.  Kyros,  they  say, 
determined  to  make  an  example  of  his  prisoner,  and 
ordered  Kroisos  to  be  burned  alive  with  fourteen 
young  Lydians.  One  author  even  describes  the  pro- 
cession :  how  the  women  preceded  and  followed  the 
king  and  the  fourteen  boys,  as  they  were  led  along 
in  chains,  with  loud  lamentation  and  tearing  of 
clothes;  how  the  richest  ladies  of  Sardis  sent  their 
slaves  with  gifts  of  costly  robes  and  ornaments  of 
every  kind,  to  be  laid  on  the  pyre  and  burned  with 
the  victims.  The  wood  had  actually  been  set  on 
fire,  when  Kyros  relented,  moved  by  some  words 
uttered  by  Kroisos,  and  ordered  the  flames  to  be 
put  out.  But  they  had  gained  too  much  ground 
already,  and  all  efforts  to  quench  them  were  unavail- 
ing. Then  Kroisos  offered  up  a  prayer  to  Apollo, 
who  sent  a  violent  shower,  which  extinguished  the 


314  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA, 

fire.  And  thus  was  Kroisos  saved,  and  lived  hence- 
forth, more  friend  than  prisoner,  at  the  Persian 
court.  Now  this  account  bristles  with  incongruities 
and  contradictions.  In  the  first  place  such  a  pro- 
ceeding is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  Persian 
hero's  humane  and  magnanimous  temper,  and,  be- 
sides, we  had  just  before  been  told  that  he  had  given 
order,  before  the  city  was  taken,  to  spare  the  king  in 
battle.  As  for  the  torture  and  slaughter  of  fourteen 
innocent  boys,  it  is  a  cruelty  which  he  cannot  for 
a  moment  have  contemplated.  Then,  again,  as  a 
Zoroastrian,  Kyros  could  not  possibly  commit  such 
an  outrage  on  the  most  sacred  element  of  fire,  even 
admitting  that  the  Zoroastrian  religion,  as  professed 
by  the  Persians,  was  free  from  the  exaggerated  fire- 
worship  introduced  by  Median  Magism.  But  if  a 
fallen  foe,  a  great  king,  elected  to  die  rather  than 
bear  the  ignominy  of  defeat  and  bondage,  and  chose 
to  do  so  in  a  sacrificial  ceremony  sanctioned  by  the 
sacred  traditions  of  his  country,  it  was  not  the 
victor's  place  to  prevent  him  ;  his  very  respect  would 
forbid  interference,  while  his  presence  at  the  solemn 
act  would  be  meant  as  a  mark  of  courtesy  and  ad- 
miration. This  then  is  the  now  generally  accepted 
explanation  of  a  statement  which  has  long  puzzled 
and,  one  may  almost  say,  scandalized  every  student 
of  ancient  history.  Such  royal  sacrifices — in  the 
king's  own  person  or  that  of  his  first-born  son — were 
familiar  to  Oriental  religions  and  of  not  infrequent 
occurrence;  still  less  unusual  was  the  sacrifice  of 
youths  or  children  as  expiatory  offerings.  Every 
thing  points  to  this  explanation  as  the  only  correct 


•'  KURUSH,    THE  KING,   THE  AKH^MENIAN."      315 

one — even  the  account  of  the  quantity  of  precious 
things  laid  on  the  pyre.*  If  Kroisos  prayed  aloud, 
he  certainly  prayed  that  the  sun-god  might  ac- 
cept the  self-offered  victim  and  show  mercy  to 
his  people.  When  a  heavy  shower  interrupted 
the  self-immolation  in  the  very  act  of  consumma- 
tion, it  was  most  natural  to  interpret  it  as  a  sign 
that  the  god  rejected  the  sacrifice.  Nor  is  it  un- 
reasonable to  believe  that  the  humane  and  sensible 
Kyros  took  occasion  from  it  to  urge  his  deeply 
bowed  captive  to  give  up  his  desperate  intent, 
assuring  him  of  treatment  befitting  a  noble  foe  and 
a  king,  or  that  Kroisos,  finding  out  what  manner  of 
man  this  was  that  had  conquered  him,  yielded  his 
will  to  him  and  consented  to  live,  henceforth  his 
captive  no  longer,  but  his  friend.f  Kyros,  who  did 
not  do  generous  things  by  halves,  gave  him  a  city  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Agbatana,  the  income  from 
which  was  to  provide  for  his  wants,  and  became  so 
much  attached  to  the  gentle  and  wise  quondam  king, 
that  he  seldom  dispensed  with  his  company  even  in 
his  most  distant  expeditions,  always  asked  and  often 
followed  his  advice,  and  before  his  death  is  said 
to  have  commended  his  son  Kambyses  to  his  kind 
and  watchful  care,  knowing  how  much  the  rash  and 
headstrong  youth  needed  a  counsellor  and  modera- 
tor. The  grandson  of  Kroisos,  an  infant  at  the  time 
of  the  disaster,  lived  to  a  great  old  age,  and  is  men- 

*  See  above,  p. 309,  the  account  of  Kroisos'  great  sacrifice  in 
honor  of  the  Delphic  Apollo,  and  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  pp.  120-139. 

fSee  Duncker,  vol.  IV.,  pp.  330-332;  also  Ed.  Meyer,  "  Ges- 
chichte  des  Alterthums,"  vol.  I.,  p.  604. 


3l6  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

tioned  as  an  aged    grandee  under   one   of  the  late 
Akhaemenians. 

19.  Kyros  was  planning  great  things ;  not  only  was 
his  presence  required  in  the  far  East,  where  the  Bac- 
trians  and  some  nomadic  tribes  were  showing  them- 
selves unmanageable,  but  he  contemplated  a  personal 
expedition  against  Babylon,  and  even  an  Egyptian 
campaign — for  the  Pharaoh's  interference  in  the  favor 
of  Lydia  was  not  to  be  forgotten  or  condoned  even 
though  it  had  been  only  an  intention  to  w^iich  circum- 
tances  denied  fulfilment.  Kyros  was  therefore  impa- 
tient to  depart  from  Sardis,  and  left  the  subjugation 
of  the  Greek  cities  of  the  sea-shore  to  one  of  his  gen- 
erals, his  old  friend  Harpagos,  that  being  a  necessary 
sequence  of  the  conquest  of  Lydia.  But  before  he 
left,  he  was  confronted  by  some  Lacedaemonian  en- 
voys, who  addressed  him  with  great  boldness,  forbid- 
ding him,  in  the  name  of  their  people,  to  molest  any 
Greek  city  in  any  way,  since  they  would  not  suffer  it. 
Great  must  have  been  the  astonishment  of  the  mighty 
conqueror  at  this,  to  him,  inconceivable  presump- 
tion, when  the  envoy's  words  were  conveyed  to  him 
by  the  interpreter.  It  must  have  been  in  simple 
amazement  that  he  asked  some  Greek  bystanders 
who  these  Lacedaemonians  were,  and  what  was  their 
number,  that  they  dared  to  send  him  such  a  notice? 
"If  I  live,"  he  is  then  said  to  have  replied,  "the 
Spartans  shall  have  troubles  enough  of  their  own  to 
talk  of,  without  concerning  themselves  about  the 
lonians."  Such  was  the  first  tiny  cloud  of  the  great 
thunderstorm  that  was  to  burst  over  Hellas  fifty  years 
later.     The  Greek  cities,  meanwhile,  submitted  with- 


■'  KURUSH,   THE  KING,   THE  AKHAiMENlAN."      317 

out  very  much  resistance.  Within  three  years  they 
were  successively  brought  under  the  yoke,  with  the 
exception  of  Miletus,  who  made  special  terms  and 
retained  her  independence.  Kyros  did  not  make 
any  exorbitant  demands  on  his  new  subjects'  purse 
or  allegiance.  But  he  placed  each  city  under  a  chief, 
chosen  among  its  own  nobles,  whom  he  made  re- 
sponsible for  her  conduct  and  the  payment  of  the 
tribute ;  in  fact,  a  tyrant,  who  governed  with  almost 
royal  authority,  but  was  himself  under  the  constant 
supervision  and  authority  of  the  Persian  Satrap,*  re- 
siding at  Sardis.  Whatever  it  became  under  later 
kings,  the  Persian  rule  under  the  first  Akha;menians 
was  moderate  and  mindful  of  the  various  peoples' 
welfare.  Lycia  and  Cilicia,  after  some  demurring, 
followed  suit.  Nor  had  Kyros  during  his  lifetime  to 
.contend  with  rebellion  in  this  part  of  his  dominions, 
though  he  never  visited  it  again,  with  the  exception 
of  a  single  rising  in  Sardis,  immediately  after  his 
departure  ;  a  rising  which  was  easily  quelled,  and, 
being  treated  with  wise  leniency,  was  not  repeated. 
Indeed,  so  thoroughly  did  the  Lydians  become 
reconciled  to  the  new  order  of  things,  that  they 
gave  themselves  up  entirely  to  the  arts  and  indus- 
tries of  peace,  which  formerly  had  shared  their  at- 
tention with  the  manlier  games  of  ambition  and 
war,  and  soon  became  notoriously  the  most  luxurious, 
pleasure-loving,  and  effeminate  of  Asiatic  nations. 
Their  influence  in  this  direction  on  their  conquerors 
was  very  great,  and  by  no  means  wholesome. 

*  Satrap,  old  Yqx%\zx\.  Khshatrapd,  "defender  of  the  empire"  or 
'*  of  royalty.'' 


3l8  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSfA. 

20.  The  turn  of  Babylon  was  coming  at  last.  In- 
deed a  first  and  unsuccessful  attempt  (probably  be- 
cause premature  and  ill-managed),  was  made  in  this 
same  year  546  B.C.,  or  the  next,  from  Elam.  Here 
arises  the  question  :  wJien  was  the  whole  of  Elam 
conquered  and  annexed  by  the  Persian  king?  It 
must  have  been  no  long  or  difficult  task,  and,  in  the 
absence  of  all  information  on  the  subject,  it  is  sug- 
gested, with  great  probability,  that  it  may  have  been 
accomplished  immediately  after  the  overthrow  of 
Lydia  and  before  the  first  attack  on  Babylon.  For 
Herodotus  tells  us  that  Kyros  returned  to  Agbatana 
with  the  bulk  of  his  army  straight  from  Sardis,  and 
the  nearest  way  to  Accad  lay  undoubtedly  through 
Elam.  In  whatever  manner  he  may  have  occupied 
the  capital,  Shushan  (henceforth  better  known  as 
Susa),  he  was  delighted  with  its  situation,  and  turned 
it  into  a  thoroughly  Persian  city  and  his  own  favor- 
ite royal  residence,  in  preference  to  his  own  city  of 
Pasargadae,  which,  from  its  insignificance,  remote- 
ness, isolation,  and  unfavorable  geographical  condi- 
tions, was  little  fit  to  be  the  capital  of  a  great  em- 
pire, embracing  a  vast  variety  of  countries  and 
nations,  while  Susa,  contrasting  favorably  with  the 
clan-city  of  the  Akha^menians  in  every  one  of  these 
particulars,  seemed  made  for  the  purpose.  Hence- 
forth Susa  may  be  considered  as  the  principal  capital 
of  the  Persian  Empire,  and  its  river,  the  Choaspes, 
a  branch  of  the  Eulajus  (Ulai),  had  the  honor  of 
supplying  the  kings  with  the  only  drinking-water 
they  would  use.  Kyros  first  instituted  this  custom, 
which  was    religiously  kept    up  by  his    successors. 


''  KURUSH,   THE  KING,   THE  AKHyEMENIAN."      3I9 

"  Wherever  the  great  king  travels,"  Herodotus  re- 
ports, "  he  is  attended  by  a  number  of  four-wheeled 
cars  drawn  by  mules,  in  which  the  Choaspes  water, 
ready  boiled  for  use,  and  stored  in  flagons  of  silver, 
is  moved  with  him  from  place  to  place."  *  Later 
Akhaemenian  kings  built  there  palaces,  the  gorgeous- 
ness  of  which  is  brought  home  to  us  by  the  numer- 
ous and  magnificently  preserved  specimens  and 
fragments  discovered  by  Mr.  Dieulafoy,  within  the 
last  three  years. f  There,  like  the  Assyrian  kings  in 
Nineveh,  they  stored  most  of  the  wealth  furnished 
them  by  tribute  and  conquests,  and  such  was  the 
accumulation  in  the  treasure-house  of  Susa,  that 
Alexander  of  Macedon,  when  he  took  possession  of 
it  (331  B.C.),  found  in  it,  besides  immense  sums  of 
money,  50,000  talents  of  silver  in  ore  and  ingots 
(equal  in  value  to  about  38  millions  of  dollars); 
also  5,000  quintals  of  finest  purple  dye, — a  quintal 
being  equal  to  about  one  hundred  pounds,  and  the 
value  estimated  at  125  dollars  per  pound. 

21.  The  affairs  of  Babylon  between  the  death  of 
Nebuchadrezzar  (561  B.C.)  and  the  first  Persian  in- 
vasion (546  B.C.)  can  be  disposed  of  in  a  very  few 
lines.  His  son  Avil-Marduk  (the  Evil-Mero- 
DACH  of  the  Bible,)  is  said  to  have  governed  in  a 
reckless  and  headstrong  manner.  Some  Egibi- 
tablets  are  dated  from  his  short  reign,  and  the  only 
other  mention  of  him  we  find  is  the  grateful  report 

*  It  is  amusing  to  find  so  early  an  instance  of  this  hygienic  pre- 
caution— the  boiling  of  water, — which  we  are  wont  to  consider  as  so 
very  modern. 

•j-  See  Appendix  to  this  chapter. 


320  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

of  the  Bible  historian  of  the  favor  he  showed  to  the 
king  of  Judah,  Jeconiah,  whom,  after  a  captivity  of 
thirty-six  years,  he  "took  out  of  prison."  : 

"  And  he  spake  kindly  to  him  and  set  his  throne  above  the  thrones 
of  the  kings  that  were  with  him  in  Babylon.  And  he  changed  his 
prison  garments,  and  did  eat  bread  before  him  continually  all  the 
days  of  his  life.  And  there  was  an  allowance  given  him  of  the 
king,  every  day  a  portion,  all  the  days  of  his  life."  (Second  Kings, 
XXV.,  27-30.) 

Avil-Marduk  was  assassinated,  after  a  reign  of  only 
two  years  (559  B.C.),  by  his  brother-in-law,  NergaL- 
SHAR-UZZUR,  known  through  the  Greeks  as  Neri- 
GLISSAR,  who  succeeded  him  and  reigned  four  years, 
peacefully  enough  it  would  seem,  completing  some 
works  left  unfinished  by  Nebuchadrezzar,  such  as  the 
walls  along  the  Euphrates,  and  repairing  temples. 
His  son,  Labashi-Marduk,*  was  but  a  boy,  but  is 
said  to  have  shown  a  thoroughly  perverse  disposi- 
tion, and  perished,  after  only  nine  months,  in  a 
palace  conspiracy.  His  assassins  placed  on  the 
throne  a  certain  NabU-NAHID,  better  known  as 
Nabomdus  (555  B.C.)  He  was  the  son  of  the 
Rab-mag  (probably  high-priest,  or  chief  of  the 
priesthood),  of  Babylon,  and  it  is  uncertain  whether 
he  was  connected  with  the  royal  family.  But  his 
mother  was  Nitokris,  that  same  queen  to  whom  He- 
rodotus erroneously  attributes  so  many  of  Nebu- 
chadrezzar's works.  (See  p.  240.)  From  a  mention  of 
this  princess  in  one  of  Kyros'  cylinders,  we  are  justi- 
fied to  assume  that  she  was  a  woman  of  remarkable 
parts,  and  wielded  an  unusual  power  and  influence  in 

*The  name  is  mutilated  by  the  Greek  writers  in  all  sorts  of  ways  • 
Labassoarakhos,  Laborasoarchod,  etc. 


"KURUSH,    THE  KING,   THE  AKH^MENIAN."      32 1 

state  affairs.  It  is  surmised  by  some  scholars  that 
she  may  have  been  a  daughter  of  Nebuchadrezzar, 
which  would  indeed  account  both  for  her  character 
and  the  position  she  held,  as  also  for  the  fact  that  her 
son  reigned  for  so  many  years  unopposed  and  un- 
molested. As  it  is  highly  probable  that  there  still 
were  some  public  works  to  finish,  and  that  the  queen- 
mother  may  have  taken  an  active  interest  in  them, 
we  may  find  in  this  circumstance  the  most  natural 
explanation  of  Herodotus'  mistake. 

22.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Nabonidus  owed 
his  elevation  in  a  great  measure  to  the  priesthood, 
to  which  he,  by  birth,  belonged.  His  zeal  in  build- 
ing and  especially  repairing  temples  surpasses  that 
of  his  most  pious  predecessors,  and  seems  to  have 
been  accompanied  by  a  sort  of  antiquarian  taste, 
which  prompted  him  to  search  for  the  cylinders  of 
the  original  founders,  so  as  to  establish  the  age  of 
each  sanctuary.  To  this  remarkable  peculiarity  we 
owe  some  of  our  most  precious  discoveries,  and  in 
fact  a  new  departure  in  the  chronology  of  Ancient 
Chaldea."^  Unfortunately  for  himself,  however,  Na- 
bonidus appears  to  have  devoted  most  of  his  care 
and  to  have  shown  a  marked  preference  to  the  older 
temples  of  the  land,  whereupon  the  priesthood  of 
the  capital  itself,  the  guardians  of  the  more  special 
patrons  of  later  Babylon,  Bel-Marduk  and  Nebo, 
took  offence  on  behalf  of  these  deities  and  consid- 
ered their  own  dignity  slighted  and  their  interests 
neglected  by  one  who,  in  their  opinion,  should  have 

*  See  the  discovery  of  Nabonidus*  cylinders  at  Sippar  and  Lar- 
sam,  "Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  213,  218,  219. 


322  MEDIA,    BABYLOAT,   AND  PERSIA. 

been  their  devoted  champion.  If  this  feeHng  was 
openly  expressed,  it  is  clear  that  Nabonidus  took  no 
pains  to  conciliate  this  dangerous  class.  In  the 
great  cylinder  which  contains  the  annals  of  his  reign, 
we  arc  struck  with  the  sullenly  spiteful  persistence 
with  which  the  priestly  scribe  repeats,  at  each  new 
year:  "  Nebo  came  not  to  Babel,  Bel  came  not 
forth  .  .  .  "  /.  e.  the  customary  processions  were 
omitted.  Kyros  was  a  great  hero  and  statesman, 
still  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  he  would  have 
had  quite  such  easy  work  with  Babylon  had  not 
treachery  done  most  of  it  for  him.  It  was  probably 
in  reliance  on  his  secret  intelligences  in  the  capital 
that  he  hurried  his  first  attempt,  of  which  the  great 
cylinder  gives  an  account :  "  In  the  ninth  year  (546 
?,.Q.^,  Nabu-nahid  the  king  was  in  Teva*  ;  the  king's 
son,  ofificers,  and  army  were  in  Accad."  The  king's 
eldest  son  BeL-SHAR-UZZUR  (the  Belshazzar  of 
the  Bible)  is  here  meant,  whom  his  father  had  asso- 
ciated with  himself  in  the  government,  much  in  the 
same  way  that  Esarhaddon  shared  the  royal  power 
with  his  son  Asshurbanipal.  We  have  a  small  cyl- 
inder, found  in  the  temple  of  the  Moon-god  at  Ur 
(Mugheir),  with  a  very  fervent  prayer  addressed  to 
that  god  on  behalf  of  himself  and  his  son  by  Nabon- 
idus: "As  for  me,  Nabu-nahid,  king  of  Babel,  in  the 
fulness  of  thy  great  divinity,  grant  me  length  of  life, 
to  remote  days,  and  for  Belshazzar,  my  first-born 
son,    the   desire    of    my   heart.     Reverence  for  thy 

*  Teva  is  thought  to  be  a  separate  quarter  of  Babylon, — perhaps 
the  new  quarter  built  by  Nebuchadrezzar,  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Euphrates. 


■  KURUSH,   THE  KING,   THE  AKH^MENIAN."      323 

great  divinity  establish  thou  in  his  heart ;  may  he 
not  be  given  to  sin  !  "  *  To  his  mother  and  to  this 
son  the  king  seems  to  have  mainly  left  the  care  and 
burden  of  state  affairs,  for  it  is  expressly  said  that 
"  in  the  month  of  Nisan  (March,  the  fiirst  month  of 
the  year),  the  king  to  Babel  came  not,"  while  on  the 
fifth  day  of  the  same  month  the  queen-mother  died 
"  who  resided  in  the  fortified  camp  on  the  Euphrates, 
beyond  Sippar.  The  king's  son  and  his  soldiers 
mourned  for  her  three  days,  and  there  was  weeping. 
In  the  month  of  Sivan  (May-June),  there  was  mourn- 
ing in  the  land  of  Accad  for  the  king's  mother." 
The  death  of  so  important  a  person,  who  almost 
seems  to  have  shared  in  the  command  of  the  army 
of  defence,  encamped  on  the  northern  frontier  of  the 
army,  must  have  produced  dismay  and  perhaps  con- 
fusion, and  it  is  not  impossible  that  Kyros  may  have 
hastened  his  expedition  in  order  to  take  advantage 
of  this,  to  him,  opportune  moment.  "  In  the  month 
of  Nisan,"  the  chronicle  continues,  "  Kurash,  king  of 
Parsu,  collected  his  army  and  crossed  the  Tigris  be- 
low Arbela."  The  following  lines  are  too  much  in- 
jured to  make  much  sense,  but  something  must  have 
delayed  the  Persian  king  (perhaps  the  occupation  of 
Elam  ?),  since  it  is  only  in  the   third   month   of  the 

*  The  author  of  the  Book  of  Daniel  (V.,  2),  makes  of  Belshazzar 
the  son  of  Nebuchadrezzar.  Should  his  grandmother,  Queen  Ni- 
tokris,  really  turn  out  to  be  a  daughter  of  that  king,  there  would  be 
nothing  amiss  with  the  designation,  which,  in  Oriental  speech,  often 
was  and  is  used  in  a  wide  sense,  for  "  descendant."  "King"  he 
certainly  could  be  called,  from  the  position  he  held  by  his  father's 
will.  Indeed,  one  lately  published  inscription  shows  that  he  had  a 
separate  royal  establishment. 


324  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

following  \'ear  (Sivan  of  the  tenth  year  of  Naboni- 
dus),  that,  "  Kurash  came  into  Accad  from  the  land 
of  the  Elamites."  Then  we  read  "The  Prefect  of 
Erech,"  .  .  .  and  here  the  line  breaks  off.  It 
is  evident  that  Kyros  met  with  a  repulse  before 
Erech,  one  of  the  most  important  cities  of  the  em- 
pire. At  all  events  there  is  no  further  mention  of 
the  Persians  until  the  seventeenth  year  of  Naboni- 
dus,  538  B.C. 

23.  We  have  no  certain  information  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  Kyros  spent  the  seven  or  eight 
years  between  this  premature  attempt  and  his  sec- 
ond, successful,  Babylonian  campaign.  He  had  work 
enough,  no  doubt,  to  fill  the  time — what  with  expe- 
ditions into  the  far  east,  building  at  Pasargadai,  and 
fortifying  and  improving  his  home-rule.  As  to  Na- 
bonidus,  we  are  quite  as  much  at  fault,  the  cylinder 
which  is  our  most  trusty  guide  being  illegible  from 
his  eleventh  year  to  his  seventeenth,  /.  e.  his  last. 
One  thing  is  clear  :  he  had  not  found,  perhaps  not 
sought,  the  way  to  reconciliation  with  the  haughty 
and  covetous  priesthood  of  Babylon.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  had  done  much  to  alienate  them  still  more^ 
He  did,  indeed,  show  himself  in  Babylon  at  last, 
and  gave  orders  for  the  procession  to  take  place: 
Nebo  came  from  Borsip,  and  Bel  "  went  forth." 
There  was  also  a  sacrifice  "  for  peace."  But  at  the 
same  time  he  mortally  offended  the  priests  by  send- 
ing for  the  gods  of  other  cities  and  placing  them  in 
the  sanctuaries  of  the  great  Babylonian  patrons : 
"  the  gods  of  Accad,  those  above  the  atmos- 
phere and   those   below  the  atmosphere,  descended 


''  KURUSH,    TJiE  KING,   THE  AKH^MENIAN"      325 

to  Babel,"  with  the  exception  of  those  of  Borsip, 
Kutha,  and  Sippar.  That  this  sealed  the  king's 
doom,  we  can  see  from  the  tone  assumed  by  the 
priestly  scribes  in  the  "  Proclamation  Cylinder " 
which  they  indited  for  Kyros  after  the  fall  of  Na- 
bonidus  :  "  At  this  desecration,"  they  exclaim  with 
pious  horror,  "  the  Lord  of  Gods  was  exceedingly 
wroth,  and  all  the  gods  inhabiting  Babylon  deserted 
their  shrines."  They  were  no  longer  seen  at  festi- 
vals and  processions,  for  they  had  migrated  to  other 
congregations  who  had  reserved  places  for  them. 
In  other  words,  the  priests  removed  (probably  under 
impressively  mournful  ceremonies  and  in  the  most 
public  manner),  the  statues  and  images  of  the  offended 
gods.  The  effect  fully  answered  their  purpose : 
''Then  the  people  of  Shumir  and  Accad,  who  had 
been  left  in  darkness,  prayed  to  Marduk  to  return. 
He  granted  their  prayer,  returned,  and  rejoiced  the 
land."  But  not  unconditionally.  The  god,  while  he 
restored  to  favor  his  unoffending  worshippers,  could 
not  tolerate  the  presence  of  an  impious  ruler :  "  And 
he  [Marduk]  selected  a  king  to  conduct  after  his 
heart  what  he  committed  to  his  hands.  He  pro- 
claimed the  name  of  Kurash,  king  of  the  city  of 
Anshan,  to  be  king  over  the  whole  country,  and  to 
all  people  he  declared  his  title.  .  .  .  To  his  own  city 
of  Babel  he  summoned  him  to  march,  and  he  caused 
him  to  take  the  road  to  Tintir ;  like  a  friend  and 
benefactor  he  conducted  his  army."  It  is  impossible 
to  state  more  plainly,  that  the  priesthood  of  Babylon 
plotted  against  their  king,  betrayed  him,  and  called 
in  the  enemy. 


326  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

24.  There  was,  however,  still  another  influence 
at  work,  which,  for  being  secret,  and,  so  to  speak, 
underground,  should  not  be  overlooked  or  under- 
rated :  it  was  the  influence  of  the  exiled  Jews.  In 
the  forty-eight  years  of  their  captivity  (from  586 
to  538),  they  had,  under  the  guidance  of  their 
prophets,  become  in  many  ways  another  and  a  no- 
bler people  :  more  united,  more  self-contained,  more 
firmly  grounded  in  the  pure  and  absolute  monothe- 
ism of  their  religion,  as  formed  and  developed  by 
the  efforts  of  the  great  prophets.  With  their  wealth, 
their  strength  as  a  compact  body  of  many  thousands 
inspired  by  one  spirit,  one  hope,  directed  by  one  in- 
fluence, with  the  eminent  position  even  at  court 
which  some  of  their  nobles  seem  to  have  attained 
(see  the  Book  of  Daniel),  they  were  a  power  and  a 
danger  to  the  state.  The  rise  of  Persia  must  have 
been  to  them  as  the  rising  of  the  star  of  deliverance, 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  either  took  part 
in  the  plots  against  Nabonidus  or  plotted  against  him 
on  their  own  account,  and,  independently  of  the 
Babylonian  priesthood,  entered  into  negotiations 
with  Kyros  and  promised  him  assistance  and  sup- 
port. No  other  inference  can  be  drawn  from  the 
remarkable  likeness  which  the  Hebrew  documents  of 
the  time  bear  to  the  Babylonian  ones.  Passages 
like  this :  "  Yahveh  stirred  up  the  spirit  of  Koresh 
king  of  Persia,  that  he  made  a  proclamation  .  .  . 
saying,  All  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  hath  the  Lord, 
the  God  of  Heaven,  given  me  "  (Second  Chronicles, 
XXXVI.  22,23);  ^"d  this  other:  "  Yahveh  saith  of 
Koresh,  He  is  my  shepherd  and  shall  perform  all  my 


"  KURUSH,   THE  KING,    THE  AKHyEMENIAN."      32/ 

pleasure"  (Isaiah  XLVI.  28*),  show  more  than  an 
accidental  coincidence  in  thought  and  wording  with 
the  line  already  quoted  from  the  '"  Proclamation 
Cylinder,"  of  Kyros  :  "  And  he  [Marduk]  selected  a 
king  to  conduct  after  his  heart  what  he  committed 
to  his  hands.  He  proclaimed  the  name  of  Kurash, 
king  of  the  city  of  Anshan,  to  be  king  over  the  whole 
country,  and  to  all  people  he  declared  his  title."  The 
sequel  of  the  two  documents  presents  the  same  exact 
parallelism,  as  follows  : 

"Thus    saith    Yahveh    to    his  "  The  country  of  Guti  and  all 

anointed,  to  Koresh,  whose  right  its  forces  he  caused  to  bow  be- 

hand  I  have  holden,    to  subdue  fore  his  feet,  as  well  as  the  whole 

nations  before  him  .   .    .   to  open  nation  of  blackheads  (Chaldeans) 

doors  before  him.  ...   I  will  go  whom  he  brought  into  his  hand, 

before  thee  and  make  the  rugged  .  .   .   Marduk    the    great    Lord, 

places  plain.     I   will   break    in  ...    directed    his    heart    and 

pieces  the  doors  of  brass  and  cut  hand.   .    .  .    To  his  own  city  of 

in  sunder  the  bars  of  iron,  and  I  Babylon  he    summoned  him    to 

will  give  thee  the  hidden  riches  of  march  and  he  caused  him  to  take 

secret  place  ..."  (Isaiah  XLV.,  the  road  to  Tintir  ;  like  a  friend 

1-3.  and  benefactor  he  conducted  his 

enemy."     (Proclamation    Cylin- 
der of  Kyros.) 

25.  The  advance  of  the  invading  forces  took  place 
from  several  sides.  The  Proclamation  Cylinder 
speaks  of  them  as  "  far-extending,  of  which,  like  the 
waters  of  the  river,  the  numbers  could  not  „  „   ^ «  u 

'  Fall  of  Baby- 

be  told."     The  beginning  seems  to  have  '°">  538  b.c. 

been    made    by    a    rising    in    the    lowlands    by   the 

Gulf,  and  Kyros  himself  appeared  south  of  Babylon 

*  The  latter  part  of  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  from  chapter  XL.,  is  not  by 
Isaiah,  the  grand  old  prophet  and  minister  of  Hezekiah,  but  by  a 
later  writer,  of  the  time  of  the  Captivity,  whom  Bible  scholars  have 
agreed  to  designate  as  "  the  second  Isaiah." 


328  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

in  the  month  of  Dumuzi  (June-July),  where  he  prob- 
ably encountered  a  loyal  army,  as  a  battle  is  men- 
tioned. At  the  same  time  his  general,  the  Made 
GOBRYAS,  was  conducting  operations  in  the  north. 
After  crossing  the  Tigris  below  Nebuchadrezzar's 
bulwark,  the  so-called  Median  Wall,  he  advanced 
straightway  against  Sippar,  as  it  Avas  essential  to  gain 
possession  of  the  great  reservoir  and  the  four  canals. 
From  this  point  the  Annals-Cylinder  is  admirably 
preserved,  and  tells  the  story  completely : 

"  The  men  of  Accad  broke  out  into  a  revolt.  The  soldiers  took 
Sippar  on  the  14th  day  without  fighting.  Nabu-nahid  fled.  On  the 
l6th  day  Ugbaru  [Gobryas],  the  governor  of  Gutium  [the  Zagros 
highlands,  Kurdistan],  and  the  army  of  Kurash,  descended  to  Babel 
without  fighting.  Then  he  got  Nabu-nahid,  who  had  been  bound, 
into  his  power.*  At  the  end  of  the  month  of  Dumuzi  the  rebels  of 
Guti  closed  the  doors  of  the  temple  of  Marduk,  but  there  was 
nothing  there  for  their  defence,  nor  in  the  other  temples  ;  there 
were  no  weapons.  In  the  month  Arah-Shamna  "  [October-Novem- 
ber, nearly  four  months  after  the  occupation],  "on  the  third  day, 
Kurash  descended  to  Babel.  The  streets  were  black  before  him. 
He  promised  peace  to  the  city  and  all  within  it.  Ugbaru  he  con- 
firmed as  his  viceroy,  appointed  governors,  and  from  the  month 
Kislev  to  the  month  Adar  [November-March]  he  sent  back  to  their 
shrines  the  gods  of  Accad  whom  Nabu-nahid  had  brought  down  to 
Babel.  In  the  dark  month  Arah-Shamna,  on  the  nth  day,  .  .  .  the 
king  died.  ..." 

From  this  matchless  monument,  whose  authority 
is  absolutely  unimpeachable,  supported  as  it  is  by 
that  of  the  companion  cylinder,  we  learn  the  cap- 
ture of  Babylon  as  it  really  took  place,  and  that  is  a 
story  entirely  different  from  any  given  in  the  various 

*The  other  cylinder,  with  a  touch  of  genuine  priestly  spite,  says  : 
"Nabu-nahid,  the  king  who  did  not  worship  him,  he  [Marduk]  de- 
livered into  the  hands  of  Kurash." 


''  KURUSH,   THE  KING,   THE  AKHAiMENIAN."      329 

sources  to  which  we  were  compelled  to  trust  until 
these  late  discoveries.  No  war,  no  siege,  no  de- 
fence, no  emptying  of  the  Euphrates  into  the  great 
reservoir,  no  nocturnal  surprise  ;  but  treason,  revolt, 
voluntary  surrender,  peaceful  occupation,  and  a  tri- 
umphal entry.  The  one  battle  mentioned  may  be 
that  to  which  Herodotus  alludes  (Book  I.,  190),  but 
not  one  other  point  of  his  narrative  is  correct. 
Nabonidus  was  evidently  delivered  into  the  hands  of 
Gobryas  by  his  own  treacherous  subjects,  probably 
the  priests.  His  death  on  the  eighth  day  after  the 
arrival  of  Kyros  has  an  ugly  look;  yet,  from  our 
knowledge  of  that  monarch's  character,  suspicion  of 
foul  play  scarcely  can  attach  to  him.  At  all 
events,  this  testimony  disposes  of  another  story, 
according  to  which  the  king  surrendered  himself 
into  Kyros'  hands,  who  treated  him  kindly  and 
gave  him  a  province  near  Persia,  whither  he  re- 
tired, and  where  he  peacefully  spent  the  rest  of 
his  life.  The  somewhat  obscure  passage  about  the 
"rebels  of  Guti "  seems  to  refer  to  a  stand  at- 
tempted by  a  faithful  body  of  highlanders  in  one  of 
the  temple  quarters.  It  is  not  improbable  that  they 
may  have  been  commanded  by  the  king's  son,  Bel- 
shazzar,  of  whom  we  find  no  mention,  and  that  he 
may  have  perished  in  the  desperate  venture.  This 
might  account  for  the  story  in  the  Book  of  Daniel, 
as  describing  a  part  of  the  event.  As  for  the  feast, 
it  was  the  season  of  the  famous  festival  held  in 
honor  of  the  god  Dumuzi,  or  Thammuz,  in  the 
course  of  his  own  month,*  and  it  is  not  at  all  un- 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  324-326. 


330  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

likely  that  it  should  have  been  celebrated,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  religion,  even  at  the  last  extremity. 

26.  Kyros  could  not  linger  in  any  one  part  of  his 
empire,  which  was  now  the  most  extensive  the  world 
had  ever  seen.  Yet  he  spent  several  months  at 
Babylon,  ordering,  conciliating,  rewarding,  and  doing 
all  that  the  most  enlightened  statesmanship  could 
dictate  to  establish  his  rule,  not  on  the  fears,  but  the 
gratitude  and  security  of  his  new  subjects.  There  is 
nothing  that  wins  a  people  so  rapidly  and  surely  as 
respect  shown  to  its  religion.  Kyros,  therefore,  did 
not  scruple  to  sacrifice  in  the  temples  and  to  the 
gods  of  the  ancient  imperial  city,  calling  himself,  as 
well  as  his  son  KambUJIYA  (Kambyses),  the  "  wor- 
shipper of  Marduk  the  great  Lord,"  and  "daily  to 
pray  to  Marduk  and  Nebo,"  on  behalf  of  himself  and 
his  son,  for  length  of  days  and  success.  As  for  more 
solid  tokens  of  gratitude  and  favor,  we  find  no  record 
of  such,  but  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that,  in  the  flush  of 
his  easy  victory,  the  conqueror  could  not  be  any 
thing  but  generous  to  those  who  had  smoothed  the 
way  for  him.  We  can  infer  as  much  from  the  royal 
magnificence  with  which  he  rewarded  the  Jews  for 
their  assistance.  He  delivered  them  from  their 
bondage,  bade  them  return  to  their  own  country  and 
there  rebuild  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple,  for  which 
purpose  he  gave  them  a  grant  of  timber  in  the  Leb- 
anon, and  restored  to  them  all  the  sacred  gold  and 
silver  vessels  which  Nebuchadrezzar  had  carried 
away  and  distributed  among  the  temples  of  Babylon. 
He  made  a  public  proclamation  to  the  effect  that 
such  was  his  pleasure,  enjoining  on  all  men  to  help 


"  KURUSH,    THE  KING,    THE   AKH^MENIAN:'      33 1 

and  further  their  undertaking  by  gifts  and  active  as- 
sistance. In  the  preamble  to  this  proclamation  he 
speaks  like  a  follower  of  Yahveh,  saying  that  "  the 
God  of  Heaven  has  charged  him  to  build  him  a 
house  in  Jerusalem,  which  is  in  Judah,"  exactly  as 
he  calls  himself  a  worshipper  of  Marduk,  and  states 
that  "  Marduk  the  great  Lord "  ordered  him  to 
repair  his  shrine.  It  does  not  follow  that  he  ever 
professed  either  the  Babylonian  or  Jewish  religion, 
or  was  any  thing  but  a  Mazdayasnian  himself.  But 
the  political  principle  on  which  he  consistently  acted 
was  to  gain  his  subjects'  confidence  and  affections, 
and,  to  this  end,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  he 
should  outwardly  conform  to  their  modes  of  religious 
speech  and  worship  when  he  was  among  them. 

27.  Early  in  the  spring  of  the  following  year  (537 
B.C.), — at  least  we  seem  to  gather  as  much  from  the 
mutilated  end  of  the  "  Annals," — Kyros  departed 
from  Babylon,  leaving  there  his  eldest  son  Kamby- 
ses  as  his  viceroy.  We  have  no  information  as  to 
how  exactly  he  occupied  the  next  eight  years.  Some 
part  of  the  time  he  must  have  spent  at  home,  and 
we  know  that  he  deposited  in  his  new  palace  at 
Pasargadse  most  of  the  untold  wealth  which  the  treas- 
uries of  Sardis,  Agbatana,  and  Babylon  had  yielded 
him.  Ancient  historians  are  not  unanimous  on  the 
manner  of  his  death,  which  took  place  in  329  B.C. 
It  seems  probable  that  he  perished  in  an  expedition 
against  the  Massaget^,  a  distant  and  very  barbarous 
nomadic  tribe,  whose  range  lay  in  the  far  northeast 
beyond  the  Sea  of  Aral.  That  is  the  version  which 
Herodotus    gives,   but,   as  usual,  so   obscured   with 


332  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

fables  and  incongruities  that  the  narrative  will  not 
bear  close  inspection.  No  amount  of  fact  or  de- 
tails, however,  did  we  possess  them,  could  materi- 
ally add  to  the  respect  and  admiration  with  which 
this  most  majestic  and  gracious  figure  inspired  both 
the  contemporary  world  and  remote  posterity.  It  is 
not  only  that  he  was,  in  the  highest  sense,  a  good 
king,  but  that  he  was  the  first  good  king  we  know  of. 
He  is,  moreover,  the  first  historically  approved  great 
and  good  man  of  our  own  race,  the  Aryan  or  Indo- 
European.  The  grandeur  of  his  character  is  well 
rendered  in  that  brief  and  unassuming  inscription  of 
his,  more  eloquent  and  proud  in  its  lofty  simplicity 
than  all  the  Assyrian  self-extolling,  bragging  annals: 
"  I  AM  KURUSH  THE  KING,  THE  AKH.'EMENIAN." 

Note.  The  unexpected  discovery  of  the  Anshan  royalty,  as  was 
natural,  produced  a  great  commotion  and  led  to  some  hasty  and  im- 
mature conclusions,  which,  on  closer  investigation,  have  proved  un- 
necessary. Thus  Kyros  was  turned  into  an  Elamite  of  Turanian  or 
Cosssean  (Kasshite)  stock,  a  polytheist  and  idolater  too.  And  it  was 
contended  that  his  very  name,  with  its  ending  in  ush  or  ash,  was  un- 
aryan,  nay  distinctively  Cosssean.  The  same  was  asserted  of  the  mon- 
umental name  of  his  son,  Kambujiya.  Yet,  now  that  his  Aryan 
Akhaemenian  genealogy  is  established  beyond  dispute,  sound  pol- 
icy and  a  wise  tolerance  account  for  his  concessions  to  the  religious 
feelings  of  conquered  nations  ;  and  as  to  the  two  names,  there  are 
not  many  of  more  undoubted  and  ancient  Aryan  origin  ;  they  both 
occur  in  the  oldest  Hindu  epic  literature.  The  "  KuRUS  "were  Aryan 
people  in  Northern  India,  also  a  famous  heroic  race  of  kings  ;  and 
there  was  another  Aryan  people  in  the  northwest  corner  of  India, 
that  was  known  under  the  name  of  "  Kamboja."  The  name  has 
survived  even  yet  in  that  of  a  country  bordering  on  Siam.  (See 
principally  de  Harlez,  "  Museon,"  I.,  4  ;  Spiegel,  "  Die  Altper.si- 
schen  Keilinschriften,"  2d  ed.,  p.  86  ;  and  H.  Zimmer,  "  Alt-indi- 
sches  Leben,  pp.  102  fT.) 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  LATE  DISCOVERIES  AT  SUSA, 


Of  all  historical  diggings  in  Western  Asia,  those 
of  Susa  had,  next  to  Hamadan  (Agbatana),  yielded 
the  fewest  and  poorest  results  up  to  1885.  Neither 
Mr.  Loftus  nor  other  explorers,  although  they  knew 
well  enough  where  the  palaces  of  the  Akhaemenian 
kings  were  situated,  had  succeeded  in  bringing  to 
light  any  important  relic,  owing  to  the  obdurate  stu- 
pidity and  malevolent  fanaticism  of  the  Mussulman 
authorities  at  DiZFUL,  a  city  built  near  the  site  of 
the  ancient  capital  of  Elam.  Early  in  March,  1885, 
a  French  expedition,  conducted  by  Mr.  E.  DlEU- 
LAFOY  and  his  learned  and  courageous  wife,  arrived 
at  the  ruins,  determined  to  attempt  the  impossible 
rather  than  go  home  disappointed  ;  and,  though  they 
had  to  contend  at  first  with  the  same  difficulties, 
they  were  successful  in  the  end.  They  were  re- 
warded by  a  series  of  "finds"  of  exceptional  value, 
which  are,  at  this  moment,  being  ordered  and  placed 
in  the  Louvre  Museum,  where  they  will  form  a 
worthy  counterpart  to  the  Sarzec  collection.* 

The  place  was  easy  to  identify  by  various  unmis- 
takable landmarks.     "  The  city  of  Susa,"  writes  Mr. 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  p.  92. 


334  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

Dieulafoy,  "  was  cut  in  two  by  a  wide  river,  known 
at  present  under  the  name  of  Ab-Karkha  (ancient 
Choaspes).  On  the  right  bank  were  the  populous 
quarters  ;  on  the  left — temples,  or  at  least  a  Ziggu- 
rat,  the  royal  city,  the  citadel,  and  the  palace,  the 
ruins  of  which,  entombed  in  an  immense  earth- 
mound,  rise  in  the  midst  of  the  other,  lesser 
mounds,  like  a  steep  islet  from  the  sea;  along  the 
Karkha  a  few  trees  are  growing,  the  last  descendants 
of  the  sacred  groves  that  were  desecrated  by  Asshur- 
banipal's  generals."*  It  is  known  that  Dareios,  son 
of  Hystaspes  (the  second  successor  of  Kyros),  had 
Susa  rebuilt  and  ornamented,  and  it  was  his  palace 
for  which  search  was  made  first.  But  it  was  found  that 
thispalacehadbeendestroyedby  fire,  and  that  on  top 
of  its  remains  had  been  erected  another  and  more 
sumptuous  one,  by  his  grandson,  Artaxerxes,  as 
proved  by  a  long  cuneiform  inscription,  containing 
that  king's  name  and  parentage,  which  ran  along  a 
magnificent  frieze  of  painted  and  glazed  tiles,  repre- 
senting striding  lions  (see  ill.  44),  and  which  formed  the 
decoration  of  the  pillared  porticos.  Of  course  the 
frieze  was  not  found  in  its  place  or  entire,  but  had  to 
be  patiently  pieced  together  of  fragments.  These, 
however,  turned  up  in  such  quantities  as  to  allow  the 
restoration  of  the  frieze  in  a  state  very  near  complete- 
ness. A  procession  was  thus  obtained  of  nine  of 
these  superb  animals,  a  work  of  art  which  was  pro- 
nounced in  no  way  inferior  to  the  Babylonian  models 
from  which  it  is  imitated. 

In  the  same   manner,  out  of  fragments  carefully 

*  See  "  Story  of  Assyria,  pp.  399,  400. 


336  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

collected,  Mr.  Dieulafoy  succeeded  in  reconstructing 
another  marvellous  piece  of  work,  a  frieze  represent- 
ing archers  of  the  royal  guard.  "  One  day,"  he  says, 
"they  would  bring  me  a  hand,  the  next  a  foot  in  a 
golden  boot.  Adding  piece  to  piece  as  they  fitted, 
,  I  put  together  the  feet,  ankles,  legs,  the  skirt,  the 
body,  the  arm,  the  shoulder,  and  at  last  the  head  of 
an  archer."  There  was  a  procession  of  them  as  well 
as  of  the  lions.  (See  Frontispiece.)  The  costume  is 
sumptuous  to  the  last  degree  ;  it  is  the  graceful  and 
becoming  "  Median  robe,"  the  drapery  of  which,  in 
the  natural  fall  and  softness  of  the  folds  already  be- 
trays the  influence  of  Greek  art,  grafted  on  the  con- 
ventional model  of  Assyrian  slab-sculpture.  The 
cut  of  the  clothes  is  the  same  for  all,  but  the  mate- 
rial, or  at  least  the  design,  varies,  clearly  showing  that 
the  archers  wear  the  uniforms  of  different  corps. 
Their  hair  is  held  by  circlets  of  gold  ;  they  have 
golden  bracelets  at  the  wrist  and  golden  jewels  in 
their  ears.  Their  spears  have  a  silver  call  at  the 
lower  end.  We  know  from  Herodotus  that  this 
equipment  belonged  to  the  royal  bodyguard  of 
picked  warriors,  known  by  the  name  of  "  The  Ten 
Thousand,"  or,  "  The  Immortals,"  from  their  num- 
ber, and  because,  as  soon  as  a  man  died,  in  battle  or 
from  sickness,  another  forthwith  took  his  place,  so 
that  there  never  were  more  nor  less  than  ten  thou- 
sand,— and  it  is  highly  interesting  to  find  oneself 
confronted  with  contemporary  and  authentic  repre- 
sentations of  members  of  that  famous  body.  Per- 
haps the  most  interesting  detail  about  them  is  the 
fact,  revealed  by  this  discovery,  that  some  of  their 


THE  LATE   DISCOVERIES  AT  SUSA. 


337 


uniforms  were  covered  with  scutcheon  badges,  woven 
or  embroidered  in  the  stuff,  very  much  hke  those 
worn  by  the  retainers  of  noble  and  royal  liouses  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Let  us  hear  Mr.  Dieulafoy's  de- 
scription : 


45.       ENLARGED    DETAIL  OF   THE    DESIGN   WOVEN  INTO    THE 

RIGHT    HAND    ARCHER's    ROBES. 

(See   Frontispiece.) 

"  .  •  .  On  a  white  ground  are  regularly  scattered  black  lozenges 
bordered  with  yellow.  In  the  middle  of  each  lozenge  is  painted  a  white 
knoll  bearing  three  towers — one  yellow  and  two  white.  The  design 
is  framed  by  a  yellow  line  in  relief.  This  ornament  represents,  in  the 
clearest  possible  manner,  the  citadel  of  Susa  ;  this,  at  least,  is  the 
conventional  representation  of  it  on  the  Assyrian  sculptures  that 
refer  to  the  capture  of  Susa  by  Asshurbanipal.  When  the  great  lords 
of  the  Middle  Ages  had  their  arms  embroidered  or  woven  into  the 
garments  of  their  retainers,  they  little  dreamed  that  they  had  been 
anticipated  by  the  Persian  monarchs  !  " 

The  "  Lion-frieze  "  and  the  "  Archer-frieze  "  are 
not  the.  only  specimens  of  Persian  enamelled  brick 


338 


MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 


decoration  brought  to  light  at  Susa.  Hardly  less 
handsome  in  a  different  way  is  the  casing  of  varie- 
gated enamelled  brickwork  which  adorned  the  bat- 
tlemented  parapet  or  banister  of  the  great  double 
stairs  that  led  from  the  plain  to  the  great  court 
in    front   of    the   palace,  in   a  slope  so  gentle,  with 


46.     BATTLEMENTED  STAIR  PARAPET  CASED  W  TH  ENAMELLED  BRICK- 
WORK,   AT    SUSA. 

(Palace  of  Artaxerxes.)     Compare  "  Battlements    at   Dur-Sharrukin,"  ill.  53   in 
"  Story  of  Assyria." 

steps  SO  broad  and  low,  that  they  might  easily  be 
mounted  on  horseback.  The  combinations  of  colors 
in  the  numerous  fragments  which  it  was  Mr.  Dieula- 
foy's  good  fortune  to  collect,  seem  to  have  been, 
though  striking,  singularly  harmonious.  He  gives 
the  following,  as  most  frequently  occurring : 


THE  LATE  DISCOVERIES  AT  SUSA. 


339 


On  light  blue  ground,  prevailing  color — white, 
with  touches  of  green  and  pale  yellow. 

On  dark  green  ground,  prevailing  color — golden 
yellow,  with  touches  of  blue  and  white. 

On  black  ground,  prevailing  color — golden  yellow, 
with  touches  of  pale  green  and  white. 


47.    ROYAL  SEAL  OF  THE  AKH.^MENIAN  KINGS. 
(Found  at  Susa,  by  Mr.  Dieulafoy.) 

The  gateways  were  cased  in  a  white-and-rose-col- 
ored  mosaic,  above  which  stretched  the  grand  lion 
procession. 

Not  the  least  interesting  of  Mr.  Dieulafoy's  "  finds  " 
is  the  royal  seal  of  the  Akhsemenian  kings  ;  not  the 


340 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 


impression  alone,  but  the  seal  itself,  conical-shaped, 
of  a  valuable  gray,  opal-like  stone.  The  two  sphinxes 
which  seem  to  guard  the  royal  medallion,  plainly 
r.how,  by    their   Egyptian   character,   that   this  seal 


48.    WINGED  BULL  AT  PERSEPOLIS. 
(Compare  Assyrian  winged  bull,  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  ill.  27.1 

could  have  been  adopted  only  after  the  conquest  of 
Egypt.  But  the  most  remarkable  feature  about 
it  is  the  figure  within  the  winged  disk,  hovering 
above  the  royal  efifigy.  It  is  an  obvious  imitation 
of  the  Assyrian  Asshur-symbol,  and  like  that  symbol 


49-    PERSIAN  PILLAR — BASE  AND  CAPITAL, 


342  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

is  always  found  above  or  in  front  of  the  king,  wher- 
ever he  appears  in  the  wall  and  rock-sculptures  of 
the  Akhaemenians.  It  is  plain  that  they  adopted  it 
as  the  meetest  emblem  of  their  own  supreme  god 
Ahura-Mazda  and  we  find  it  lavishly  reproduced 
on  all  their  monuments,  be  they  palaces  or  tombs. 
The  only  difference  lies  in  the  national  garb  worn 
by  the    Eranian  god,  and   the  curve    of  the  wings, 


50.     DOUBLE  GRIFFIN  CAPITAL. 

which  on  Assyrian  sculptures  are  straight.  (Com- 
pare ill.  54  and  "  Story  of  Assyria,"  ill.  1-4  and  22.) 
We  find  the  same  alteration  in  the  winged  bulls,  the 
majestic  warders  of  the  palace  gates  at  Persepolis, 
the  capital  of  the  later  Akhaemenian  kings. 

A  column  was  also  found  at  Susa,  the  most  perfect 
specimen  of  the  kind,  in  far  better  preservation  than 
any  at  Persepolis,  although  exactly  similar  to  the  lat- 
ter in  the  peculiar  and  complicated  ornamentation 
of  the  upper  shaft  and  capital,  which  seems  to  have 


THE  LATE  DISCOVERIES  AT  SUSA. 


343 


been  a  distinctive  and  original  creation  of  Persian 
art.  At  least  nowhere  else  are  seen  the  animal 
forms  which  surmount  the  column  and  support  the 
entablature — sometimes  horses,  sometimes  bulls,  or 
grififins — used  in  just  this  way. 


51.     DOUBLE  BULL  CAPITAL. 


XIL 


KAMBYSES,  529-522   B.C. 


1.  Kambyses  was  the  eldest  son  of  Kyros  the 
Great  and  his  Persian  queen,  Kassandane,  and  as 
such  the  undisputed  heir  to  the  crown  of  Persia 
proper  and  of  the  vast  empire  created  by  his 
father.  One  Greek  writer,  it  is  true,  calls  him  the 
son  of  Amytis,  but  it  is  a  fiction  which,  it  is  easy  to 
see,  came  from  a  Median  source.  Had  his  mother 
been  a  foreigner,  he  could  not  have  reigned,  still  less 
have  succeeded  so  smoothly  and  quietly,  as  a  matter 
of  course.  He  was  not  a  novice  in  statecraft,  having 
had  several  years'  practice  as  viceroy  at  Babylon, 
where  several  Egibi  tablets  have  been  found,  dated 
from  that  time,  Kambyses  being  "  entitled  King  of 
Babel  "  and  Kyros  "  King  of  the  Countries," — a  more 
comprehensive  title. 

2.  Kambyses  probably  was  honestly  desirous  of 
governing  well  and  justly,  and  on  several  occasions 
can  be  shown  to  have  tried  to  follow  in  his  father's 
footsteps.  For  he  was  not  devoid  of  fine  qualities; 
but  he  lacked  the  self-control  and  admirable  balance 
which  made  the  chief  greatness  of  his  father's  char- 
acter. So  he  suffered  his  faults  to  obscure  and  de- 
grade  his  better  self,  and  unfortunately  they  were 


KAMBYSES,  529-522  B.C.  345 

just  the  faults  that  are  most  heinous  and  dan- 
gerous in  a  man  armed  with  absolute  power:  un- 
governable temper  and  suspiciousness.  The  former 
frequently  carried  him  beyond  all  bounds  of  decency 
and  moderation,  converting  even  acts  of  justice  into 
the  enormities  of  a  raving  tyrant.  Thus  on  one  occa- 
sion, having  detected  one  of  the  seven  supreme  judges 
in  dishonest  practices,  such  as  taking  bribes  and  tam- 
pering with  justice,  he  had  him  flayed,  ordered  his 
chair  to  be  covered  with  the  skin,  and  compelled  his 
son,  who  succeeded  him  in  the  ofifice,  to  sit  in  that 
chair,  when  trying  cases — as  a  warning.  True,  he 
was  quick  to  regret  his  violent  outbreaks ;  still  he 
must  have  inspired  more  terror  than  love  in  his  im- 
mediate circle,  and  we  may  well  credit  the  report, 
mentioned  by  Herodotus,  that  his  subjects  drew  this 
difference  between  him  and  the  great  Kyros,  that, 
while  they  used  to  call  the  latter  "  father,"  they  had 
no  title  for  Kambyses  but  the  formal  one  of  "  mas- 
ter." Of  this  feeling  towards  him  he  was  sensitively 
aware  and  bitterly  resented  it.  This  unamiable  na- 
ture was  further  poisoned  by  the  jealousy  with  which 
he  regarded  his  only  brother,  young  Bardiya,* 
whom  he  not  unjustly  suspected  of  being  the  peo- 
ple's favorite,  and  therefore  looked  upon  as  his  own 
dangerous  rival.  Yet  he  at  first  acted  honorably, 
even  generously  by  that  brother  :  he  either  gave  him 

*  The  Greeks  gjive  the  name  as  Smerdis,  having  probably  heard 
"  Berdis"  ;  some  call  this  prince  Tanaoxares  or  Tanyoxarkes, 
which  Eranian  scholars  take  to  be  a  corruption  for  the  Persian 
"'  thauvarakhshatkra,''  i.  e.,  "  king  of  the  bow"  ;  not  unlikely,  for 
we  are  told  that  Bardiya  had  the  reputation  of  being  the  best  archer 
and  marksman  among  the  Persians. 


340  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

or  confirmed  him  in  the  government  of  Khorasmia, 
Bactria,  Parthia,  and  Karmania,  i.  e.,  of  nearly  the 
whole  of  eastern  Eran,  because  such  had  been  his 
father's  behest, 

3.  It  is  very  probable  that,  after  the  fashion  of 
Oriental  politics  so  familar  from  the  history  of  Assy- 
ria's wars,  the  death  of  the  "  king  of  kings  "'  was  the 
signal  for  risings  in  some  of  the  annexed  countries, 
and  that  this  fact  is  alluded  to  in  Herodotus'  brief 
statement  that  "  Kambyses  conquered  over  again  the 
nations  that  had  been  conquered  by  Kyros."  After 
which  he  began  to  prepare  for  an  Egyptian  cam- 
paign. Nothing  could  be  more  natural  and  reasona- 
ble ;  it  was  what  the  course  of  events  itself  brought 
up  as  the  next  thing  to  be  done.  The  universal 
monarchy  which  evidently  was  the  dream  of  Kyros, 
would  have  been  incomplete  without  Egypt,  nor  was 
the  pretence  wanting  to  give  plausible  color  to  the 
aggression  :  for  had  not  Amasis  promised  his  assist- 
ance to  Lydia  against  Persia,  and  been  prevented 
from  interfering  only  by  the  excessive  rapidity  of 
the  conqueror's  movements  ?  and  was  not  this  a 
presumption  that  called  for  chastisement  ?  It  would, 
therefore,  have  been  strange  indeed  if  the  new  king 
had  not  turned  his  thoughts  that  way.  But  this  was 
far  too  simple  an  explanation  to  please  the  ancient 
historians,  who  dearly  loved  an  ornate  story  with,  if 
possible,  a  thinly  veiled  moral  to  it.  So  we  are  in- 
formed that  Kambyses  sent  to  Amasis  to  ask  for  one 
of  his  daughters  in  marriage,  and  that  the  usurper, 
now  well-established  in  the  throne  of  the  two  Egypts, 
being  unwilling  to  send  a  child  of  his  own  to  a  re- 


KAMBYSES,  529-522  B.C.  347 

mote  and  unknown  land,  and  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  one  whose  violent  temper  may  have  been  reported 
to  him,  bethought  him  of  a  stratagem — for  to  refuse 
point-blank  would  have  been  dangerous, — and  sent  to 
Kambyses  as  his  own  daughter,  a  princess  of  the 
name  of  NiTETIS,  a  surviving  daughter  of  his  prede- 
cessor Hophra  (or  Apries),  whom  he  had  overthrown 
and  supplanted.  She  went  willingly,  seeing  an  open- 
ing for  avenging  her  father  and  family,  by  simply 
telling  Kambyses  of  the  deception  practised  upon 
him,  which  so  enraged  him,  that  he  vowed  the 
ruin  of  Egypt  on  the  spot.  The  whole  story 
is  palpably  improbable,  if  only  from  the  fact  that 
Nitetis  must  have  been  over  forty  at  the  time. 
But  the  Egyptians  had  a  much  neater  and  more 
plausible  story  of  their  own  :  they  told  Herodotus 
(who,  however,  was  too  well-informed  to  believe 
them),  that  Nitetis  had  been  one  of  Kyros'  wives, 
and — the  mother  of  Kambyses.  By  this  perversion 
of  facts,  they  connected  Kambyses  with  their  own 
royal  family,  and  converted  the  conquest  into  merely 
an  armed  change  of  dynasty,  such  as  had  occurred 
more  than  once  in  their  history,  besides  making  of 
the  conqueror  the  avenger  of  his  own  grandfather. 

4.  The  Egyptian  campaign,  although  probably 
planned  from  the  beginning  of  the  new  reign, 
could  not  have  effect  until  the  fourth  year.  It 
presented  great  difificulties,  which  Kambyses  was 
wise  enough  not  to  underrate,  but  to  meet  with 
adequate  preparations.  Amasis  was  not  a  contemp- 
tible foe  and  had  quietly  done  many  things  which 
made  a  foreign  invasion  a  more  difficult  task  than  it 


348  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

used  to  be.  He  had  occupied  the  island  of  Cyprus 
and  made  friends  with  several  Greek  islands,  a  stroke 
of  policy  which  secured  him  the  use  of  considerable 
maritime  forces,  besides  averting  the  danger  of  a 
Persian  occupation  which  otherwise  would  very 
probably  have  followed  the  submission  of  the  Greek 
cities  on  the  sea-coast.  Amasis  morever  was  liberal- 
minded  and,  breaking  through  the  stubborn  preju- 
dices of  his  people,  even  at  the  cost  of  a  good  deal  of 
his  popularity,  he  opened  the  country  to  the  Greeks, 
whom  he  permitted  to  have  a  settlement  near  the 
mouths  of  the  Nile,  kept  a  body  of  Greek  mercenaries, 
and  even  went  so  far  as  to  take  a  wife  from  the  Greek 
colony  of  Kyrene.  He  could  therefore  rely  on  the 
assistance  and  watchfulness  of  his  new  friends  from 
the  other  side  of  the  sea.  To  counteract  these  moves, 
Kambyses  determined  to  oppose  fleet  to  fleet,  Greeks 
to  Greeks.  He  ordered  the  cities  of  the  Phoenicians 
and  of  the  lonians  to  arm  and  man  their  ships  and 
be  ready  to  support  the  land  army.  The  order  was 
obeyed  without  a  sign  of  either  revolt  or  treason, 
which  goes  far  to  show  that  the  Persian  rule  was  a 
just  and  lenient  one,  at  least  compared  to  that  of 
earlier  conquerors.  The  Phcenician  and  Ionian  fleets 
were  commanded  to  join  together  just  below  Mount 
Carmel  and  then  to  proceed  downwards  along  the 
coast,  keeping  pace  with  the  army,  which  was  to 
march  along  the  ordinary  military  route.  Of  this  a 
portion,  amounting  to  several  days'  march,  passed 
through  a  stretch  of  desert,  the  terrible  wilderness  of 
the  Sinai  peninsula.  But  Kambyses  succeeded  in 
gaining  the  sheikhs  of  the  roving  Bedouin  tribes — 


KAMBYSES,  ^2C)~'^22  B.C.  349 

Midianites  and  Amalekites — whose  dominion  the 
peninsula  virtually  was,  so  that  they  promised  not 
only  not  to  molest  his  army  on  its  march,  but  to  sup- 
ply it  with  water.  It  seemed  as  though  luck  would 
complete  what  prudence  and  foresight  had  so  well 
begun,  for  a  short  time  before  Kambyses  started  on 
the  expedition,  there  came  to  him  a  Greek  deserter, 
a  certain  Phanes,  who  had  commanded  the  Greek 
bodyguard  of  Amasis,  and  secretly  left  it,  being  dis- 
contented with  something  or  other,  to  join  the  inva- 
ders. Amasis  was  well  aware  of  the  evil  consequences 
this  desertion  could  have  for  Egypt,  and  sent  trusty 
men  in  pursuit.  They  tracked  him  as  far  as  Lycia, 
where  they  actually  captured  him,  but  he  managed 
to  escape  and  gain  the  Persian  court.  He  followed 
the  king  and,  as  Amasis  had  expected,  made  himself 
very  useful  by  his  knowledge  of  the  country  and  the 
advice  he  was  able  to  impart  on  every  occasion. 

5.  Every  thing  was  now  ready  (525  B.C.),  but  the 
king  still  lingered.  He  was  leaving  his  empire  on  a 
dangerous  expedition  that  would  keep  him  away 
months,  perhaps  years.  To  whom  should  he  entrust 
the  government  in  his  absence?  The  most  natural 
and  fittest  person  for  such  a  trust  would  have  been 
his  only  brother  Bardiya,  his  heir  presumptive  also, 
as  he  himself  was  childless.  But  the  inveterate  dis- 
trust of  all  Oriental  despots  towards  their  own  flesh 
and  blood  would  not  suffer  him  to  entertain  the 
thought.  Nay,  so  much  was  that  feeling  intensified 
by  his  own  individual  temperament,  jealous  and  sus- 
picious to  the  verge  of  monomania,  that  he  could 
not  even  bear  to  leave  his  brother  behind  ;  visions  of 


350  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSI-A. 

plots  and  usurpation  harassed  him  continually: 
ruler  of  most  of  the  eastern  countries  of  Eran,  i.  c, 
nearly  half  the  empire,  whose  allegiance  was  not 
very  firm  at  best,  how  easily  could  Bardiya,  the  ad- 
mired and  beloved,  incite  them  to  open  rebellion, 
when  he  would  dispose  of  sufficient  forces  to  over- 
power the  other  half,  and  seize  on  his  absent  brother's 
crown,  perhaps  without  even  meeting  with  any 
opposition  !  Smarting  with  the  consciousness  of  his 
own  impopularity,  Kambyses  brooded  over  these 
evil  presentiments  until,  driven  beside  himself  with 
apprehension  and  distrust,  he  sought  security  from 
fancied  dangers  in  crime :  he  had  Bardiya  secretly 
assassinated.  Nothing  is  known  of  how  the  deed 
was  done,  for  the  details  given  by  the  various  Greek 
writers  are  contradictory,  and  evidently  apocryphal. 
The  only  authentic  record — and  quite  sufificient  it  is 
— we  have  in  the  great  Behistun  inscription,  wherein 
Kambyses'  successor,  King  Dareios,  makes  the  fol- 
lowing brief  and  explicit  statement : 

"  A  man  named  Kambujiya,  son  of  Kurush,  of  our  race,  he  was 
here  king  before  me.  Of  that  Kambujiya  there  was  a  brother,  Bar- 
diya was  his  name  ;  of  the  same  mother  and  of  the  same  father  with 
Kambujiya.  Afterwards  Kambujiya  slew  that  Bardiya.  When 
Kambujiya  had  slain  Bardiya,  it  was  not  known  to  the  people  that 
Bardiya  had  been  slain.  Afterwards  Kambujiya  proceeded  to 
Egypt.    ..." 

6.     The  campaign  was  short,  and  successful  beyond 
Battle  of      expectation.     While  the  preparations  had 

Pelusion.  .  111,  1 

Conquest  of    been  gomg  on,  there  had  been  a  change 

Egypt,  525  f  ,  ^T_  •  1  A  •     1       1 

B.C.  01    rulers;   the  wise  and  waiy  Amasis  had 

died,  and  when  the  Persian  army  reached  the  east- 


KAMB  Y SE S,  ^2(^~'^22  B.C,  35 1 

ern  mouth  of  the  Nile,  it  was  his  son,  PSAMMETIK 
III.  (more  frequently  called  PSAMMENIT  by  the 
Greeks),  whom  they  encountered.  There  was 
one  battle,  near  Pelusion,  and  it  was  final.  Psam- 
metik  at  once  retreated  to  Memphis  with  the 
bulk  of  his  army,  intending  to  make  a  stand  in 
this  the  holiest  and  most  ancient  city  of  the  mon- 
archy. Pelusion  was  held  for  a  short  time  by 
another  detachment,  but  was  unable  to  resist  the 
pressure  of  army  and  fleet  combined.  The  surrender 
of  this  fortress  opened  Egypt  to  the  invader;  his 
ships  now  sailed  up  the  Nile  and  reached  Memphis 
before  the  land  army,  to  which  they  afTorded  a  most 
welcome  and  necessary  support,  since  the  Nile  had 
to  be  crossed  before  the  capital  could  be  attacked. 
It  would  seem  that  the  city  did  not  offer  much 
resistance.  The  citadel,  indeed,  with  its  garrison 
commanded  by  the  king,  did  well  and  bravely,  but 
was  overpowered  by  numbers  and  forced  to  surren- 
der. The  noblest  of  the  land  fell  as  captives  into 
the  hands  of  the  conqueror,  and  Psammetik  was  of 
the  number.  This  virtually  ended  the  war,  and  the 
whole  country  submitted  almost  with  alacrity.  An 
Egyptian  inscription  has  been  found  which  says: 
"  When  the  great  king,  the  lord  of  the  world,  Kam- 
bathet  (Kambyses),  came  up  against  Egypt,  all  the 
nations  of  the  world  were  with  him.  He  made  him- 
self master  of  the  whole  land,  and  bade  them  sit 
down  there."  It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether 
the  submission  would  have  been  as  rapid  and  univer- 
sal had  the  reigning  house  been  more  popular.  It 
was  not  only  that  Amasis  had  been  an  usurper;  he 


352  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

was  not  the  first ;  and  usurpers,  when  they  flatter 
the  national  tastes  and  prejudices,  seldom  find  the 
people's  hearts  obdurate  against  them.  But  Amasis 
had  been  a  friend  of  the  Greeks,  had  admitted  them 
to  settle  in  the  country,  and  even  enlisted  a  body- 
guard of  the  hated  and  despised  foreigners — all 
grievous  sins  in  the  eyes  of  the  proud  and  bigoted 
Egyptians. 

7.  On  finding  himself  thus  alrhost  unexpectedly 
master  of  so  great  a  country,  where  every  thing  must 
have  been  bewilderingly  strange  to  him  and  to  his 
companions,  Kambyses  acted  as  became  a  son  and 
pupil  of  the  great  Kyros,  whose  golden  rule  was : 
mild  treatment  to  the  vanquished,  respect  and  tolera- 
tion to  their  customs  and  religion.  He  treated  the 
captive  Psammetik  kindly  and  honorably,  and  there 
was  no  question  of  sacking  cities,  plundering  or  dese- 
crating temples,  wasting  plantations,  and  the  like 
atrocities.  The  only  act  of  severity  which  he  enforced, 
was  the  execution  of  two  thousand  Egyptian  youths, 
whose  lives  the  Persians  demanded,  in  reprisal  for 
the  massacre  of  the  entire  crew  of  the  first  ship  that 
reached  Memphis  in  advance  of  the  fleet  and  found 
itself  cut  off  from  all  assistance.  The  ordinary  crew 
of  a  war-ship  in  those  days  consisted  of  about  two 
hundred  men,  and  there  was  nothing  excessive, 
according  to  Oriental  ideas,  in  inflicting  a  tenfold 
penalty  ;  it  was  simply  the  fate  of  war.  Otherwise 
nothing  was  changed  or  disturbed  in  laws,  institu- 
tions, or  the  national  life  generally.  The  principal 
fortresses  were  garrisoned,  and  a  Satrap  appointed 
to  maintain  the  peace  and  collect  the  tribute,  that 


KAMBYSES,  529-522  B.C.  353 

was  all.  As  to  the  Egyptian  religion,  its  forms  of 
worship  must  have  been  not  only  highly  distasteful 
to  a  Mazdayasnian,  but  ludicrously  absurd,  especially 
the  divine  honors  paid  to  so  many  animals,  useful 
and  noxious  alike — the  cat,  the  jackal,  the  crocodile, 
the  ibis, — and  the  preservation,  by  means  of  embalm- 
ing, of  dead  bodies,  both  of  men  and  sacred  animals. 
Yet  he  outwardly  conformed  to  the  religious  customs 
of  the  people  whose  ruler  he  had  become,  and  took 
pains  to  appear  before  them  in  every  way  as  the 
Pharaoh,  the  successor  of  Pharaohs,  and  as  such  he 
is  represented  on  a  painting,  kneeling  in  adoration 
before  the  Apis-Bull,  the  most  sacred  of  all  animals, 
reverenced  as  the  living  emblem  of  the  One  Supreme 
God  himself.  This  painting  still  exists  in  one  of  the 
galleries  which  formed  the  catacombs  or  burying- 
places  expressly  constructed  for  the  mummified 
remains  of  successive  lines  of  Apis-Bulls  through 
unnumbered  centuries.  The  inscription  informs  us 
that  the  recently  deceased  Apis  had  been  deposited 
in  the  resting-place  prepared  for  him  by  the  king 
Kambyses,  while  another  inscription  reports  the 
birth  of  a  new  Apis,  in  the  fifth  year  of  Kambyses. 
The  inscription  quoted  above  (see  p.  351),  is  a  long 
one,  engraved  on  the  statue  of  an  Egyptian,  who 
held  public  offices  under  Amasis,  Psammetik  III., 
Kambyses,  and  Dareios,  and  speaks  with  great  praise 
of  Kambyses'  zeal  in  religious  matters  and  his  liber- 
ality to  temples  and  their  ministers.  The  stories, 
therefore,  which  Herodotus  transmitted  of  the  blas- 
phemous and  sacrilegious  atrocities  in  which  that 
king  was  said  to  have  indulged,  even  to  the  desecra- 


354  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

tion  of  graves  and  the  killing  of  the  Apis-Bull  with 
his  own  hand,  may  safely  be  set  aside  as  later  inven- 
tions prompted  by  spite  against  the  conqueror  and 
retailed  to  foreigners  by  ignorant  or  malicious  guides. 
Greek  travellers  of  Herodotus'  time  were  the  more 
likely  to  put  faith  in  them,  that  they  had  themselves 
a  mortal  grudge  against  the  Persians,  and  certain 
Persian  customs  must  have  struck  them  as  iniquitous. 
Thus  Herodotus  is  horrified  at  Kambyses  wed- 
ding his  two  sisters,  while  we  have  seen  that, 
according  to  the  king's  own  religion,  such  unions 
were  meritorious  acts  enjoined  by  the  highest  au- 
thority. 

8.  The  most  natural  course  for  Kambyses  to 
pursue,  the  conquest  of  Egypt  once  achieved  and 
established,  would  have  been  to  depart  to  his  own 
lands,  leaving  behind  governors  and  garrisons.  But 
he  lingered  on  and  on,  evidently  possessed  with  an 
invincible  repugnance  to  return,  evincing  more  and 
more  signs  of  mental  perturbation,  and  yielding  to 
unprovoked  fits  of  murderous  temper  which  made 
him  a  terror  to  his  nearest  kinsmen  and  attendants. 
These  fits  became  the  more  frequent  and  ungoverna- 
ble that  he  indulged  in  excessive  drinking — a  vice  not 
uncommon  among  the  Persians.  It  is  most  probable 
that  remorse  for  his  brother's  fate  was  at  the  bot- 
tom both  of  his  reluctance  to  face  his  own  people 
again  and  of  his  attacks  of  spleen.  He  sought  occu- 
pation in  further  plans  of  conquest,  intending  to 
carry  his  arms  into  the  heart  of  Libya  and  of  Ethio- 
pia. He  also  meditated  an  expedition  against  Car- 
thage, which  was  to   be   reached  by  sea,   along   the 


52.       RUINED  PALACE  AT  FIRUZABAD.       CENTRAL  HALL. 


356  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

north  coast  of  Africa.  But  the  Phoenicians  blankly 
refused  to  lend  their  ships  to  be  used  against  their 
own  colony,  and  as  the  plan  could  not  be  carried 
out  without  their  assistance,  it  was  abandoned.  But 
he  did  send  out  a  body  of  troops  westward  into  the 
desert  to  take  possession  of  the  oasis  held  by  the 
Ammonians  and  famous  for  its  ancient  oracle  and 
temple  known  as  the  temple  of  Ammon  (one  of  the 
names  of  the  Egyptians'  supreme  deity),  an  import- 
ant position  for  any  one  who  wished  to  command 
the  submission  of  the  various  tribes  scattered  be- 
tween the  desert  and  the  shore.  The  little  army 
never  came  back,  nor  was  it  ever  heard  of ;  there 
was  a  tradition  among  the  Ammonians  that  it  had 
encountered  one  of  the  terrible  hot  blasts  of  the 
desert  and  been  buried  in  sand-drifts.  Kambyses 
was  more  fortunate  in  his  Ethiopian  expedition, 
which  he  commanded  in  person.  He  went  up  the 
Nile  farther  than  the  Assyrians  had  ever  gone, 
passed  through  the  country  of  the  Kushite  Ethi- 
opians, and  actually  reached  the  region  inhabited  by 
negroes,  whose  woolly  hair,  thick  lips,  and  garb  of 
skins  figure  among  the  subject  nations  on  the  sculp- 
tures of  the  royal  palaces  at  Persepolis.  (See  ill.  54.) 
This  fact,  together  with  the  payment  of  tribute, 
consisting  in  slaves  and  elephants'  tusks,  show  the 
expedition  to  have  been  successful  and  to  have 
amounted  to  a  real  conquest  rather  than  to  a  passing 
raid.  On  his  march  back,  however,  and  when  already 
approaching  the  confines  of  Upper  Egypt,  Kambyses 
had  to  contend  with  the  same  foe  as  the  troops  sent 
out  to  Ammon,  and  narrowly  escaped  the  same  fate. 


KAMBYSES,   Z^2<^^22  B.C.  357 

9.  Three  years  had  passed,  and  still  the  king  tar- 
ried in  Egypt ;  when  suddenly  strange  and  appalling 
news  came  from  home.  Bardi)^a,  it  was  reported, 
the  king's  brother,  had  rebelled  and  proclaimed 
himself  king.  Heralds  had  gone  forth  to  all  ends 
of  the  empire  to  announce  that  allegiance  should 
henceforth  be  paid  to  him  and  not  to  Kambyses. 
One  of  these  heralds  came  to  Egypt,  bearing  the 
message  to  the  army  there,  unabashed  by  the  king's 
presence.  As  Bardiya's  death  had  been  kept  a 
profound  secret  and  the  people  only  thought  that 
he  lived  secluded  in  his  palace  (no  unusual  thing  in 
the  East),  no  one  saw  any  reason  to  doubt  the  news, 
and  Kambyses  found  himself  confronted  with  the 
reality  of  the  fancied  danger  which  had  driven  him 
to  frenzy,  but  in  a  form  which  far  outdid  in  horror 
his  worst  apprehensions :  it  was  as  though  his  mur- 
dered brother's  ghost  had  risen  before  him  and  sat 
on  his  throne.  Urged  by  his  counsellors,  and  his 
kinsmen  the  Akhaemenian  princes,  he  reluctantly 
commanded  the  army  to  set  out  on  their  homeward 
march.  But  his  spirit  was  broken  ;  he  alone  knew 
that  the  usurper  must  be  an  impostor  who  had  in 
some  way  found  out  that  Bardiyawas  dead,  and  took 
advantage  of  the  people's  ignorance  of  the  fact  to 
personate  him.  He  had  no  hope  of  retrieving  his 
fortune,  for  his  conscience  told  him  he  deserved  no 
better.  And  he  had  no  child  for  whose  sake  to 
struggle  and  to  hope,  so  that  even  should  the  issue 
be  favorable,  the  inheritance  of  Kyros  must  pass 
away  from  his  direct  line,  to  the  younger  branch. 
True,  the  Persians  were  a  loyal  people,  and  not  likely 


35S  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

to  follow  an  impostor,  once  unmasked  ;  but  how 
could  the  wretched  king  effectively  unmask  him, 
save  by  divulging  his  own  foul  deed  ?  Still,  the 
good  of  the  empire  imperatively  demanded  that  this 
should  be  done — and  he  resolved  to  humble  himself 
and  confess  ;  but  to  survive  such  a  confession  was 
more  than  his  proud  spirit  could  stoop  to.  Besides, 
he  was  bitterly  conscious  that  he  should  not  be 
missed  or  mourned :  was  not  the  readiness  with 
which  his  subjects,  those  of  his  own  race  and  of  the 
provinces,  had  obeyed  the  first  call  to  rebellion,  the 
best  proof  that  he  had  forfeited  their  love  and  con- 
fidence, that  the  Hvareno,  the  "  awful  kingly  Glory" 
that  will  not  stay  where  truth  is  not,  had  gone  from 
him  ?  *  He  had  been  right  :  it  was  his  brother  who 
was  to  them  the  son  of  the  great  Kyros,  of  him 
whom  they  had  called  "  father  "  ;  lie  was  only  "  the 
master."  His  long  absence  had  done  the  rest.  And 
now  the  liberation  of  the  empire,  the  restoration  of 
royalty,  would  best  be  entrusted  to  guiltless  hands — 
nothing  could  prosper  in  those  of  the  murderer,  the 
"  Mithra-deceiver."  So  he  called  together  the  no- 
blest among  the  Persians  who  attended  him,  told  his 
lamentable  story  with  the  dignified  simplicity  of  one 
who  already  was  not  of  this  world,  and  bidding  them, 
especially  the  Akhaemenians,  repair  the  evil  that 
had  been  done,  put  an  end  to  his  own  life.  On  his 
young  kinsman,  Dareios,  temporarily  devolved  the 
task  of  taking  the  army  home  and  commanding  it, 
until  the  question  of  succession  should  be  duly 
settled. 

*  See  above,  p.  80. 


360  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

10.  This  is  the  tragedy  in  its  grand  and  simple 
features,  divested  of  the  diffuse  and  conflicting  state- 
ments, the  puerile  anecdotes  of  the  Greek  chroni- 
clers, and  viewed  by  the  light  of  the  great  Behistun 
inscription,  which  gives  it  in  the  following  brief,  but 
sufficiently  explicit  paragraph  : 

"...  When  Kambujiya  had  proceeded  to  Egypt,  then  the  state 
became  wicked.  Then  the  lie  became  abounding  in  the  land,  both 
in  Persia  and  in  Media,  and  in  the  other  provinces. 

"Afterwards  there  was  a  certain  man,  a  Magian,  named  Gau- 
MATA.  .  .  .  He  thus  lied  to  the  state  :  '  I  am  Bardiya,  the  son  of 
Kurush,  the  brother  of  Kambujiya.'  Then  the  whole  state  became 
"  rebellious."  (Spring  522  B.C.)  "  From  Kambujiya  it  went  over  to 
him,  both  Persia  and  Media,  and  the  other  provinces.  He  seized 
the  empire.  On  the  ninth  day  of  the  month  Garmapada,  then  it 
was  he  seized  the  empire.*  Afterwards  Kambujiya,  having  killed 
himself,  died.  .  .  .  After  Gaumata  the  Magian  had  dispossessed 
Kambujiya  both  of  Persia  and  Media,  and  the  dependent  provinces, 
he  did  after  his  own  desire  ;  he  became  king." 

There  are,  among  the  Babylonian  "contract- 
tablets,"  two  dated  September  and  October  of  "  the 
first  year  of  King  Barziya  " — ample  confirmation,  if 
such  were  needed,  of  this  statement,  of  the  universal 
acceptation  of  the  usurper's  claim,  and  of  the  credu- 
lity with  which  his  self-assertion  met  "  in  the 
provinces." 

*  In  July  or  August.  This  probably  refers  to  the  consecration  or 
inauguration  at  Pasargadse. 


XIII. 

DAREIOS  I,  THE  SON   OF  HYSTASPES,    522-485    B.C. — 
FIRST   PERIOD  :    CIVIL  WARS. 

I.  "  There  was  not  a  man,  neither  Persian  nor  Mede,  nor  any  one 
of  our  family,  who  could  dispossess  that  Gaumata,  the  Magian  of  the 
empire.  The  people  feared  him  exceedingly.  He  slew  many  who 
had  known  old  Bardiya.  For  that  reason  he  slew  them,  '  lest  they 
should  recognize  me  that  I  am  not  Bardiya,  the  son  of  Kurush.'  No 
one  dared  any  thing  concerning  Gaumata,  the  Magian,  until  I  ar- 
rived. Then  I  prayed  to  Ahura-Mazda  ;  Ahura-Mazda  brought  help 
to  me.  On  the  tenth  day  of  the  month  Bagayadish"  (the  first 
month,  March-April),  "then  it  was  that  I,  with  my  faithful  men, 
slew  that  Gaumata,  the  Magian,  and  the  men  who  were  his  chief 
followers.  The  fort  named  Sikathauvatis,  in  the  district  Nisaya  in 
Media,  there  I  slew  him.  I  dispossessed  him  of  the  empire.  By  the 
grace  of  Ahura-Mazda  I  became  king  ;  Ahura-Mazda  granted  me 
the  empire." 

Thus  Dareios,  in  the  Behistun  record.  The 
lengthy  and  highly  adorned  narratives  of  the  Greek 
historians  afford  a  valuable  commentary  to  this  brief 
and  pithy  statement.  Valuable,  for  overladen  as  they 
are  with  trumped  up  anecdotes,  speeches  of  Greek 
invention,  and  facts  misrepresented  because  not  un- 
derstood, they  still  supply  us  with  a  continuous 
thread  of  action,  enabling  us  to  make  out  the  main 
features  of  a  most  dramatic  incident.  We  may 
pretty  safely  reconstruct  it  as  follows : 


362  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

2.  After  Kambyses'  death,  his  army,  on  the  home- 
ward march,  declared  in  favor  of  the  supposed  Bar- 
diya.  Dar^ios  hastened  to  Persia  and,  before  decid- 
ing on  a  course  of  action,  secretly  wrote  to  the 
Satraps  of  the  several  provinces,  to  try  and  secure 
their  assistance.  The  result  was  not  encouraging. 
There  seem  to  have  really  been  only  two  on  whom 
he  could  implicitly  rely,  besides  his  own  father, 
who  was  Satrap  in  Parthia.  This  convinced  him 
that  it  would  be  imprudent  to  proceed  openly  aiid 
violently,  since  most  people  believed  in  the  usurper, 
and  Bardiya,  had  he  been  alive,  would  now  have  been 
the  natural  and  legitimate  heir  of  his  childless 
brother.  Besides,  the  Magian  had  taken  care  to  in- 
gratiate himself  with  the  provinces,  by  notifying 
them  all,  as  soon  as  he  assumed  the  sceptre,  that  he 
"  granted  them  freedom  from  war-service  and  from 
taxes  for  the  space  of  three  years."  He  was  there- 
fore far  from  unpopular,  and  Dareios  wisely  shrank 
from  a  civil  war,  the  issue  of  which  would  have  been 
more  than  doubtful.  A  bold  stroke,  an  accomplished 
fact — such  was  the  only  safe  and  practical  solution, 
and  Dareios  decided  on  a  daring  deed,  which  would 
have  been  impossible  but  for  certain  Persian  customs, 
on  which  he  cleverly  built  his  plans. 

3.  We  have  seen  (see  p.  279),  that  the  Persian  na- 
tion was  first  constituted  by  the  fusion  of  several 
tribes — probably  originally  seven — under  the  leader- 
ship of  Akhaemenes,  the  head  of  the  noblest  of  them, 
the  Pasargadae.  But  although  this  particular  family 
thus  became  invested  with  hereditary  royalty,  great 
privileges  were  awarded  to  the  heads  of  the  six  other 


54-    DAREIOS  I.   ON   HIS  THRONE,   UTBORNE  HY  SUBJECT  NATIONS. 

(PEUSEPOLIS  ) 

(Note  the  Negro  in  the  lower  left-hand  corner. 


364  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

tribes  or  clans,  who  were,  in  fact,  the  king's  peers  and 
enjoyed  perfect  equality  with  him,  short  only  of  the 
royal  power  itself.  They  all  wore  the  royal  head- 
dress,— the  tall  kidaris  or  tiara  ;  they  could  enter  the 
royal  presence  at  all  times,  unannounced  ;  they  were 
the  king's  companions  and  advisers  by  right  of  birth, 
and  it  was  only  from  their  families  he  could  choose 
his  first  wife,  his  queen,  as  it  was  into  their  families 
that  he  married  his  own  sons  and  daughters,  his 
brothers  and  sisters.  On  this  ancient  and  sacred 
custom  Dareios  built  his  simple  plan.  The  heads  of 
the  seven  tribes — he  being  one  of  them  and  their 
leader — should  present  themselves  at  the  palace 
gates,  alone,  without  any  followers ;  the  pretender 
could  not  possibly  deny  himself  to  them  without 
violating  a  fundamental  law  of  the  empire,  and  he 
would,  by  so  doing,  arouse  suspicion  ;  once  inside  the 
palace,  their  own  bravery  and  opportunity  should  do 
the  rest.  The  six  chiefs  agreed  to  stand  by,  Dareios 
and  dare  the  venture  with  him.  They  could  take 
their  own  time  to  mature  the  plot,  for  one  who  gave 
himself  out  as  a  son  of  Kyros  could  not,  without  be- 
traying himself,  attempt  any  thing  against  the  seven 
princes.  Yet  he  seems  to  have  felt  some  uneasi- 
ness, since,  as  the  inscription  tells  us,  he  removed 
from  Persia  into  Media,  and  there  established  him- 
self not  in  the  capital,  Agbatana,  but  in  a  mountain 
castle.  This  removal  considerably  increased  the 
difificulty  and  danger  for  the  conspirators,  since  he 
was  there  surrounded  by  his  brother-Magi,  who,  as 
we  have  seen,  formed  a  separate  and  powerful  class 
in  the  country.  Still,  the  plan  arranged  by  the  seven 


DA  RE  10  S  I.  :    CIVIL   WARS,  365 

princes  could  not  well  be  altered  ;  indeed  it  became 
more  urgent  than  ever  that  it  should  be  carried  out. 
They  fearlessly  rode  up  to  the  castle  gate,  Dareios 
pretending  that  he  was  the  bringer  of  a  message  to 
the  king  from  his  father  Hystaspes,  the  heir  presump- 
tive. As  he  had  foreseen,  they  passed,  unchallenged 
and  unhindered  by  the  guards.  A  few  moments 
later  and  the  usurper  had  ceased  to  live,  after  a  brief 
and  desperate  scuffle  with  some  attendants.*  The 
retinue  of  the  seven,  which  had  been  left  at  some 
distance  behind,  now  hastened  to  their  support  and 
prevented  a  popular  outbreak.  This  day  was  set 
apart  for  all  coming  times,  to  be  celebrated  by  a  fes- 
tival in  memory  of  "  the  slaughter  of  the  Magian." 
The  Greeks,  utterly  misunderstanding  the  purport  of 
this  festival,  gravely  asserted  that  a  slaughter  of 
whatever  Magians  were  met  with  on  the  street,  took 
place  every  year  on  the  anniversary  of  that  day,  so 
that  no  Magi  showed  themselves  out-doors  as  long 
as  it  lasted.  Almost  immediately  after  this  feat  of 
boldness,  Dareios  was  proclaimed  king,  probably  by 
previous  agreement  with  his  companions,  and  with 
the  consent  of  his  father  Hystaspes,  who  continued 
to  govern  his  distant  province.  In  his  great  inscrip- 
tion he  faithfully  records  the  names  of  his  six  com- 
panions, emphasizing  the  fact  that  they  were  his  only 
helpers.  "  These  are  the  men  who  alone  were  there 
when  I  slew  Gaumata,  the  Magian,  who  was  called 
Bardiya.  These  alone  are  the  men  who  were  my  assist- 
ants."   One  of  them  was  Gobryas,  his  father-in-law. 

*  He  had  reigned  seven  months  since  the  death    of    Kambyses, 
very  nearly  a  year  in  all. 


366  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PEKSI'A. 

4.  Thus  was  accomplished  with  astonishing  ease 
and  scarcely  any  bloodshed  one  of  the  most  import- 
ant revolutions  in  history.  A  short  interval  of 
peace  now  followed,  during  which  Dareios  devoted 
all  his  energies  to  the  work  of  reconstruction.  He 
tells  us  so,  in  his  usual  concise  but  comprehensive 
manner: 

' '  The  empire  which  had  been  taken  away  from  our  family,  that  I 
recovered.  ...  I  established  the  state  in  its  place,  both  Persia 
and  Media,  and  the  other  provinces.  As  it  was  before,  so  I  made 
it.  The  temples  which  Gaumata  the  Magian  had  destroyed,  I  re- 
built. I  reinstituted  for  the  state  both  the  religious  chants  and  the 
worship,  and  gave  them  to  the  families  which  Gaumata  the  Magian 
had  deprived  of  them.  ...  By  the  grace  of  Ahura-Mazda  I  did 
this  ;  I  labored  until  I  had  established  our  family  in  its  place  as  it 
was  before.  Thus  I  labored,  by  the  grace  of  Ahura-Mazda,  that 
Gaumata  the  Magian  should  not  supersede  our  family." 

The  mention  in  this  passage  of  the  Behistun  in- 
scription of  temples  destroyed  and  rebuilt  has  sorely 
puzzled  the  decipherers.  For  it  is  well  known  that 
the  Zoroastrian  religion  admits  of  no  temples,  and 
that  its  only  rallying-points  of  worship  are  its  dtesh- 
gdJis  or  fire-altars,  in  the  open  air  or  in  unpretend- 
ing, unadorned  chapels.*  That  a  Mazdayaznian, 
therefore,  should  take  to  himself  credit  for  rebuild- 
ing  temples    seemed    an     unaccountable    anomaly. 

*  The  Persians  have  had  temples,  but  at  a  later  period,  which  does 
not  come  within  the  bounds  of  the  present  work.  That  period  may 
be  called  that  of  the  final  decadence  of  pure  Mazdeism.  We  know 
of  temples  erected  to  Mithra  and  Anahita-Ardvi-Sura  already  by 
King  Artaxerxes,  the  grandson  of  Dareios.  This  was  due  to  the 
influence  of  the  Semitic  and  Canaanitic  religions  ;  Mithra  was  trans- 
formed into  a  counterpart  of  their  Baals  and  Molochs,  and  Anahita 
into  that  of  their  nature  goddesses — Beltis,  Mylitta,  Astarte,  Atarga- 
tis,  and  the  rest.     She  had  a  famous  temple  at  Susa. 


aiS    o 

<    " 
2    tS 


S    t/3 


368  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSM. 

The  inconsistency,  however,  vanishes  if  we  assume, 
with  Max  Duncker,*  that  temples  not  of  the  Per- 
sians or  Medes  are  meant,  but  of  the  subject  nations. 
We  have  seen  that  Kyros  and,  in  imitation  of  him, 
his  son  Kambyses  made  it  a  point  not  only  to  toler- 
ate, but  personally  to  honor,  the  religions  of  con- 
quered countries.  It  is  very  natural  to  suppose  that 
the  usurper  would  be  uninfluenced  by  the  dictates 
of  sound  statecraft,  and,  blindly  following  his  priestly 
zeal,  would  neglect  and  even  destroy  these  to  hirn 
abominable  seats  and  landmarks  of  heathenism. 
Dareios,  no  less  naturally,  immediately  resumed  the 
liberal  and  conciliatory  policy  of  his  house,  and 
mentions  it  in  his  annals  as  a  claim  on  the  regard  of 
a  large  portion  of  his  subjects.  We  must  remember 
that  all  the  Akh^emenian  monumental  documents 
are  trilingual,  because  addressed  to  three  distinct 
races,  and  that,  numerically,  the  Mazdayasnians 
formed  the  minority.  We  are  forcibly  reminded  of 
this  fact  by  one  apparently  slight  detail.  In  the 
Turanian  version  (that  which  has  been  called  the 
Proto-Median,  or  Amardian,  or,  more  lately,  Scythic), 
the  name  of  Ahura-Mazda  is  accompanied  with  the 
explanatory  clause,  "  the  god  of  the  Aryas."  The 
Babylonian  version  speaks  of  "  houses  of  the  gods," 
an  expression  which  excludes  both  Persians  and 
Medes. 

5.  That  Dareios  himself  was  a  Mazdayasnian,  and 
an  earnest  one,  of  that  the  language  used  in  his  in- 
scriptions leaves  no  shadow  of  a  doubt.  Near  the 
Persian    capital  of  which  he  was  the  founder,  and 

*  Max  Duncker,  "  Geschichte  des  Alterthums,"  vol.  IV.,  p.  458. 


DAREIOS  I.  :    CIVIL   WARS.  369 

which  is  known  to  us  only  by  its  Greek  name,  Per- 
SEPOLIS,  there  is  a  perpendicular  rock  called  NakH- 
SHl-RuSTEM,  in  which  are  hewn  the  tombs,  or 
rather  sepulchral  chambers,  of  Dareios  and  three  of 
his  immediate  successors,  representing  the  front  of 
palaces,  after  the  manner  of  the  Lycian  rock-tombs. 
(See  Chap.  VIII.)  They  are  richly  adorned  with 
sculptures,  among  which  we  especially  note  the 
frieze  representing  a  procession  of  dogs— the  sacred 
animal  of  the  Avesta  ;  the  king,  standing  on  a  plat- 
form, leaning  on  his  bow — unstrung,  for  the  work  of 
life  is  done, — in  adoration  before  the  blazing  fire- 
altar,  the  sun-disk,  and  the  hovering  emblem  of 
Ahura-Mazda.     (See  ill.  56). 

Of  the  three  tombs  in  the  row,  that  of  Dareios 
alone  has  an  inscription,  which  in  some  ways  com- 
pletes the  record  of  Behistun,  having  been  indited 
several  years  later.  It  begins  with  the  most  solemn 
profession  of  faith,  which  affects  one  like  the  far- 
swelling  peal  of  some  great  organ  : 

"  A  great  god  is  Ahura-Mazda  ;  he  has  created  this  earth,  he  has 
created  yonder  heaven,  he  has  created  man,  and  all  pleasant  things 
for  man,  he  has  made  Darayavush  king,  the  only  king  of  many." 

Then  follows  a  brief  review  of  his  deeds  and  of 
his  conquests,  piously  referred  to  "  the  grace  of 
Ahura-Mazda."  No  Hebrew  monotheist  could  be 
more  absolute  and  emphatic  :. 

"  That  which  I  have  done,  I  have  all  done  through  the  grace  of 
Ahura-Mazda.  Ahura-Mazda  brought  me  help,  till  I  had  performed 
the  work.     May  he  protect  me  and  my  clan  and  this  land.    .    .    ." 

The  same  statement  is  repeated  several  times  in 


370  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

the  Behistun  annals,  and  though  he  twice  qualifies 
it  by  the  addition,  "  Ahura-Mazda  and  the  other 
gods  that  are,''  these  words  have  not  in  the  original 
the  decided  polytheistic  coloring  that  a  modern  ren- 
dering gives  them.  We  know  that  Mazdeism  admit- 
ted of  divine  beings  subordinate  to  the  One  who  is 
Supreme,  and  such,  no  doubt,  is  the  meaning  here. 
Another  trait  characteristic  of  the  Mazdayasnian 
is  the  use  he  makes  of  the  word  "  lie,"  which  is 
throughout  equivalent  to  "  evil,"  "  wickedness." 
After  the  departure  of  Kambyses,  we  are  told  that 
"  the  lie  became  abounding  in  the  kingdom."  And 
the  word  used  is  the  Avestan  "  drtij,''  in  the  more 
modern  form  "  daratiga^  Towards  the  end  of  the 
record  Dareios  says  :  "  For  this  reason  Ahura-Mazda 
brought  help  to  me,  and  the  other  gods  that  are, 
that  I  was  not  wicked,  nor  was  I  a  liar  ["  daraiijha- 
na  "  =  Avestan  ''  drujvaii  "],  nor  was  I  a  tyrant." 

6.  From  these  passages,  which  breathe  the  spirit 
rather  of  the  Gathas  than  of  the  Yasna  or  Vendidad, 
we  may  conclude  that  King  Dareios  was  a  Mazda- 
yasnian of  the  early  uncorrupted  school,  and,  with 
much  probability,  that  the  alterations  introduced 
into  the  doctrine  and  ritual  by  the  Median  Magi 
(see  p.  271)  had  not  been  adopted  by  the  Persians. 
At  least  they  do  not  appear  to  have  followed  the 
prescriptions  of  the  Vendidad  in  their  treatment  of 
the  dead, — certainly"not  strictly.  Their  kings  we 
find  entombed  in  elaborately  wrought  sepulchres, 
not  exposed  to  the  birds.  But  we  saw  that  this  cus- 
tom is  a  borrowed  one,  a  fact  betrayed  by  the  very 
word  "  Dakhma,"  which  originally  meant  "  the  place 


DARIEOS  I.  :    CIVIL   WARS. 


371 


of  burning,"  showing  that  the  early  Eranians,  like 
their  brethren  of  India,  were  familiar  with  crema- 
tion.*    Herodotus  has  a  curious  passage,  from  which 


^|l^^^rfe?^g^^S;^1^fegat^^^j 


56.       DETAIL  OF  AKH^MENIAN  TOMB. 
(Compare  Lycian  rock-tombs,  ch.  viii.) 

it  would  seem  that  the  practice  of  exposing  the  dead 
was  gaining  ground  in  Persia  in  his  time  (middle  of 
the  fifth  century  B.C.),  but  in  a  sort  of  underhand 

*  Justi,  "  Geschichte  des  Alten  Persiens,"  p.  88. 


372  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

way,   being   introduced   and   favored — as  we   might 
expect — by  the  Magi  : 

"  There  is  another  custom  which  is  spoken  of  with  reserve,  and 
not  openly,  concerning  their  dead.  It  is  said  that  the  body  of  a  male 
Persian  is  never  buried,  until  it  has  been  torn  either  by  a  dog  or  a 
bird  of  prey.  That  the  Magi  have  this  custom  is  beyond  a  doubt, 
for  they  practise  it  without  any  concealment.  The  dead  bodies  arr 
covered  with  wax  and  then  buried  in  the  ground." 

This  last  practice  looks  very  much  like  a  conces 
sion  to  the  Magian  teachings,  as  a  layer  of  wax  maj 
be  considered  to  isolate  the  body  and  thus  preserve 
the  earth  from  pollution.  Nor,  strictly  speaking, 
can  any  of  the  elements  be  polluted  by  a  body  shut 
up  in  a  cof^n  or  sarcophagus  and  then  deposited, 
not  in  the  earth  itself,  but  in  a  chamber  hewn  in  the 
hard,  dry  rock.  That  the  Persians  of  Dareios'  time, 
moreover,  shunned  the  nearness  of  a  corpse,  as  en- 
tailing impurity,  we  may  infer  from  another  passage 
of  Herodotus,  which  tells  us  that  this  king  himself, 
on  one  occasion,  refused  to  enter  Babylon  through 
a  certain  gate,  because  above  that  gate,  was  the  sep- 
ulchre of  Queen  Nitokris,  the  mother  of  Nabonidus, 
who,  from  some  unaccountable  whim,  had  chosen  for 
herself  that  peculiar  place  of  rest,  '^he  story  may 
not  be  true,  but  it  is  significant. 

7.  If  Dareios  had  hoped  to  aver^  further  troubles 
by  the  swift  and  skilful  blow  which  he  struck  at  the 
very  root  of  evil,  in  the  person  of  the  impostor  Gau- 
mata,  that  hope  was  deceived,  and  he  was  given  but 
a  very  few  months  for  the  work  of  reconstruction 
which  he  at  once  undertook.  The  Satraps  of  the 
distant  provinces  had    tasted   the    sweets  of    inde- 


57-      BUILDING  KNOWN  AS  "  RUSTEM's  TOMB,"  AT  NAKHSHI-RUSTEM. 
(Compare  ill.  43). 


374  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

pendence  during  the  long  absence  of  Kambyses  and- 
the  late  period  of  comparatively  slack  rule,  and 
were  loth  to  return  under  the  strict  control  of  the 
central  authority.  The  populations  were  highly 
pleased  with  the  Magian's  way  of  governing,  and  the 
majority  of  them  undoubtedly  still  believed  him  to 
be  what  he  represented  himself ;  so  the  sparks  of 
future  disturbances  were  by  no  means  stamped  out. 
A  year  had  not  elapsed,  when  the  conflagration 
broke  out  nearly  simultaneously  on  all  points  of  the 
empire.  And  this  unheard  of  thing  came  to  pass,  that 
every  province  that  rebelled  was  led  by  an  impostor 
or  pretender:  the  success  of  the  tragi-comedy  en- 
acted by  the  Magian  Gaumata  had  borne  plenteous 
fruits  and  produced  a  perfect  epidemic  of  the  same 
kind  of  deceit.  The  one  reliable  source  of  informa- 
mation  for  the  gigantic  struggle  in  v/hich  Dareios 
suddenly  found  himself  engaged  almost  single-handed 
against  adversaries  that  sprang  up  on  every  side  of 
him,  is  of  course  his  own  narrative  on  the  Behistun 
rock  ;  it  is  singularly  modest  and  unassuming — a 
great  contrast  to  the  bragging  of  the  Assyrian  royal 
documents.  We  cannot  do  better  than  follow  it 
step  by  step,  even  when  not  quoting  from  it. 

8.  The  first  to  openly  rebel  was  Elam,  or  Susiana. 
A  certain  Atrina  there  declared  himself  king.  At 
the  same  time  a  man  of  Babylon,  Nadintabira 
by  name,  "  thus  lied  to  the  state  of  Babylon :  '  I  am 
Nebuchadrezzar,  the  son  of  Nabonidus.'  "  The  whole 
state  of  Babylon  went  over  to  him,  and  acknowl- 
edged him  for  its  king.  The  movement  at  Susa  ap- 
pears to  have  been  easily  quelled,  as  all  that  Dareios 


376  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 

says  about  it  is  this:  "I  went  to  Susiana;  that 
Atrina  was  brought  to  mc  a  prisoner  ;  I  slew  him." 
Not  so  the  rising  at  Babylon  ;  it  needed  a  real  cam- 
paign to  put  it  down.  The  rebel's  forces  were  placed 
on  the  Tigris  and  it  cost  a  battle  for  the  royal  army 
to  effect  a  passage.  Another  battle  was  fought  on 
the  Euphrates  near  the  capital,  and,  though  defeated, 
the  pretender  did  not  surrender,  but  fled  with  a  few 
horsemen  and  threw  himself  into  Babylon,  where  he 
sustained  a  regular  siege.  Dareios  records  with  great 
simplicity  that  he  "  by  the  grace  of  Ahura-Mazda, 
took  the  city  and  seized  on  the  false  Nebuchadrez- 
zar," whom  he  put  to  death.  This  expedition  occu- 
pied several  months,  and  while  he  was  detained  in 
Babylonia,  no  less  than  nine  countries  revolted 
against  him  at  once,  of  which  he  gives  the  list :  Per- 
sia, Susiana,  Media,  Assyria,  Armenia,  Parthia,  Mar- 
giana,  Sattagydia,  and  Sakia.     (See  map.) 

9.  This  second  rising  of  Elam  was  of  little  import- 
ance, and  the  people  themselves  put  it  down,  cap- 
tured the  leader  and  slew  him.  Far  greater  was  the 
danger  in  Media,  for  there  a  man  of  the  name  of 
Fravaktish  (Phraortes),  a  Mede,  had  declared  him- 
self to  be  *'  Khshatrita,  of  the  race  of  Kyaxares  "  and 
called  on  the  country  in  the  name  of  its  most  popular 
national  hero,  the  founder  of  its  greatness.  The  ap- 
peal was  eagerly  responded  to  :  even  the  Median 
troops  which  had  been  left  at  home,  went  over  to 
the  pretender,  who  was  proclaimed  king  of  Media. 
The  rising  in  Sagartia  was  headed  by  a  man  who 
also  gave  himself  out  as  a  descendant  of  Kyaxares 
and  set  up  an  independent  kingdom.     But  by  far  the 


o  7 
z    S 

Z    Pi 


X     « 


t«?       ^ 


378  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

worst  feature  of  this  conflagration  was  the  defection 
of  Persia  proper;  another  false  Bardiya  appeared 
there,  and  the  people  accepted  him.  He  was 
strong  enough  to  initiate  aggressive  proceedings, 
by  sending  out  troops  against  the  satrap  of  Ara- 
chosia,  one  of  the  few  loyal  servants  of  Dareios, 
and  to  bear  most  unflinchingly  the  brunt  of  several 
battles,  though  the  result  was  not  favorable  to  him- 
self. The  fortunes  of  Persia's  lawful  and  heroic 
king  may  well  be  said  to  have  been  desperate  at 
this  juncture.  Detained  in  a  rebellious  country  by 
a  siege  of  which  the  issue  was  doubtful,  cut  off  from 
the  rest  of  the  empire,  he  could  rely  only  on  the 
troops  he  had  with  him,  as  he  expressly  says  that 
"  only  those  Medes  and  Persians  who  were  with  him 
remained  true,  and  they  were  few  in  number."  Yet 
of  these  few  he  was  forced  to  send  off  two  detach- 
ments to  try  and  stay  the  evil  in  Media  and  in  Ar- 
menia, whence  the  insurrection  was  rapidly  spreading 
to  Assyria.  For  in  the  east  only  two  Satraps — those 
of  Bactria  and  Arachosia — persisted  in  their  allegi- 
ance, and  his  father,  Hystaspes,  did  his  best  in  his 
own  provinces  of  Hyrcania  and  Parthia,  but  was  un- 
able to  keep  them  from  declaring  in  favor  of  the 
Median  pretender.  As  for  Dareios  himself,  he  could 
not  stir  from  Babylon,  and  was  forced  to  leave  his 
faithful  friends  to  shift  for  themselves  for  the  time. 
His  two  generals  in  Media  and  Armenia  were  not 
very  successful,  being  too  inferior  in  numbers  to  the 
rebel  forces,  and  all  they  could  do  was  to  hold  their 
own  in  strong  positions,  until  he  was  able  to  come 
to  their  assistance. 


DAREIOS  I,  :    CIVIL   WARS..  379 

10.  Every  thing  now  seemed  to  depend  on  the 
personal  efforts  and  presence  of  the  king.  Had  the 
capture  of  Babylon  been  delayed  much  longer,  it  is 
probable  that  the  evil  would  have  been  beyond 
remedy.  As  soon  as  Babylon  fell  (September,  519 
B.C.)  things  began  to  take  a  more  hopeful  aspect. 
The  prestige  of  the  royal  presence  worked  wonders 
apart  from  the  welcome  reinforcements.  Dareios 
first  proceeded  to  Media,  rightly  considering  the  ris- 
ing in  that  country  the  most  threatening,  because  of 
the  national  principle  it  represented  and  the  question 
which  was  at  stake,  really  amounting  to  a  renewal  of 
the  old  contest  for  supremacy  between  Media  and 
Persia.  Phraortes  boldly  came  forward  to  meet  the 
king  with  an  army,  offering  battle.  His  confidence 
was  not  justified  by  the  event :  he  was  routed  and 
barely  escaped  with  life.  Accompanied  by  a  few 
horsemen,  he  fled  to  Rhagae,  where  he  was  captured 
by  some  troops  sent  in  pursuit  by  Dareios.  The 
cruel  treatment  he  experienced  sufificiently  shows 
how  dangerous  he  was  deemed  and  how  essential  it 
was  thought  that  he  should  be  not  only  put  out 
of  the  way,  but  degraded  in  the  eyes  of  the  people. 
"  I  cut  off  his  nose,  and  his  ears,  and  his  tongue," 
says  the  king  ;  "•  he  was  kept  chained  at  my  door — 
all  the  kingdom  beheld  him.  Afterwards  I  crucified 
him  at  Agbatana."  The  same  treatment  was  dealt 
to  the  Sagartian  who  claimed,  like  Phraortes,  to  be 
of  the  race  of  Kyaxares,  and  who  was  defeated  and 
captured  by  a  Median  general,  only  that  he  was 
crucified  at  Arbela  as  an  example  to  the  Assyrian 
rebels.     Now  at  last  Dareios  could  send   reinforce- 


380  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA, 

ments  to  his  father,  who,  with  a  few  troops,  had 
bravely  held  the  defensive,  and  who  now  gained  a 
decisive  victory  over  the  rebels  of  Parthia  and  Hyr- 
cania.  This  was  in  518  B.C.,  and  within  the  same 
year  the  faithful  Satrap  of  Bactria  routed  those  of 
Margiana. 

II.  In  5 1 7  B.C.  Persia  alone  virtually  remained  in  a 
state  of  insurrection.  Yet  the  king  stayed  in  Media, 
which  he  thought  safest  to  control  by  his  presence, 
and  sent  an  army  against  the  false  Bardiya.  Ver}' 
wisely  he  kept  his  Persian  troops  in  Media  and  sent 
the  Median  troops  to  Persia  to  avoid  the  contagious 
influences  of  national  sympathies.  After  two  battles 
fought  in  Persia  the  impostor  was  taken  and  executed 
in  the  summer  of  517  B.C.  ;  but  his  followers  in  Ara- 
chosia  held  out  several  months  longer, and  it  was  only 
in  February,  516,  that  their  leaders  were  at  last 
captured  and  put  to  death.  But  it  seemed  as  though 
as  fast  as  threads  were  fastened  at  one  end  they 
ravelled  out  at  the  other.  While  the  king  was  in 
Media  and  Persia,  Babylon  for  the  second  time 
revolted  from  him  in  favor  of  a  man  who  pretended 
that  he  was  Nebuchadrezzar  the  son  of  Nabonidus. 
This  new  rising,  however,  was  easily  quelled  by  one 
of  Dareios'  generals,  and  the  impostor  was  slain 
(January,  5 16  B.C.).  The  king  meanwhile  had  already, 
in  his  indefatigable  activity,  gone  to  Egypt,  where 
he  put  forth  all  his  powers  of  conciliation  to  retain 
the  affections  of  that  important  part  of  the  empire. 
Egyptian  monuments  bear  ample  witness  to  his  suc- 
cess, and  his  wise  rule  obtained  for  him  a  place 
among  the  great   national  lawgivers    of   the   Egyp- 


DAREIOS  I.  :    CIVIL   WARS.  38 1 

tians.  Yet  it  seems  that  all  troubles  were  not  even 
yet  at  an  end  in  Asia.  The  last  column  of  the 
Behistun  inscription,  though  injured  beyond  all 
hope  of  decipherment,  allows  a  glimpse  of  a  third, 
though  short-lived,  rising  in  Elam  and  a  war  in  the 
far  east,  against  a  Scythian  people  distingushed  from 
other  tribes  by  the  name  "  Saki  of  the  pointed 
caps."  We  can  just  make  out  that  their  chief, 
Sakunka,  was  taken  prisoner,  and  probably  put  to 
death.  Fortunately  for  Dareios,  Asia  Minor,  the 
Phoenician  cities,  and  the  Ionian  Greeks  had  not 
broken  the  peace  through  all  these  eventful  years. 
The  only  attempt  at  rebellion  was  made  by  the 
Persian  Satrap  at  Sardis,  who  tried  to  set  up  an  in- 
dependent principality  for  himself  by  uniting  Lydia 
and  Phrygia  under  his  rule  and  refusing  allegiance. 
This  attempt  is  not  mentioned  in  the  great  inscrip- 
tion, probably  because  it  was  not  put  down  by  force 
of  arms,  but  by  the  assassination  of  the  culprit,  who 
was  put  to  death  by  his  own  guard  in  obedience  to 
a  written  order  from  the  king. 

12.  It  is  the  story  of  the  almost  superhuman 
struggle  of  these  first  years  of  his  reign  that  Dareios 
confided  to  the  great  rock  at  Bagistana.  The  sculp- 
tured panel  at  the  top  of  the  inscription  is  a  forcible 
illustration  of  the  narrative.  (See  ill.  39.)  It  rep- 
resents the  king,  protected  as  usual  by  the  hovering 
emblem  of  Ahura-Mazda,  and  attended  by  two  dig- 
nitaries, one  of  whom  is  Gobryas,  his  father-in-law, 
in  an  impetuous  attitude,  one  foot  firmly  planted  on 
the  prostrate  form  of  a  man  who  stretches  out  his 
hands  as  though  imploring   mercy,  while  a   proces- 


382  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

sion  of  prisoners  approaches,  tied  together,  neck- 
and-neck,  by  one  rope,  and  with  hands  bound  behind 
their  backs.  These  are  the  nine  principal  rebels  and 
impostors  whom  it  took  over  six  years  and  nineteen 
pitched  battles  to  overcome.  They  were  all  cap- 
tured alive.  The  last  of  the  band  is  noticeable  for 
his  pointed  cap  ;  it  is  the  Scythian  Sakunka.  Short 
inscriptions  placed  above  the  head  of  each  leave  us 
no  doubt  about  their  identity.  Attached  to  the 
prostrate  figure  is  the  following  declaration  :  "  This 
Magian,  Gaumata,  lied  ;  he  spoke  thus  :  '  I  am  Bar- 
diya,  the  son  of  Kurush.  I  am  the  king.'  "  Above 
the  first  standing  figure  we  read  :  "  This  Atrina  lied  ; 
he  spoke  thus  :  '  I  am  king  of  Susiana ! '  "  and  so  on 
for  every  one. 

13.  In  the  introduction  to  this  matchless  piece  of 
history,  Dareios  gives  a  list  of  the  countries  of  which, 
by  the  grace  of  Ahura-Mazda,  he  had  become  king. 
There  are  twenty  names.  The  number  increases  to 
thirty  in  the  last  of  his  inscriptions,  that  on  his 
tomb,  and  includes  such  remote  provinces  towards 
the  four  quarters  of  the  world  as,  in  the  east  several 
districts  of  India  (Hindush),  in  the  west  "the 
lonians  beyond  the  sea  "  (the  people  of  the  Greek 
islands,  perhaps  even  of  the  Greek  continent),  the 
"Scythians  beyond  the  sea"  in  the  north  (the  peo- 
ple of  Southern  Russia),  the  Libyans  and  Kyrenians 
in  the  southwest.  It  stands  to  reason  that  many  of 
these  countries,  situated  on  the  extremest  verge  of 
the  empire,  even  though  visited  and  more  or  less 
conquered  by  Dareios,  and  by  him  incorporated  in 
the  list  of  "  Satrapies,"  /.  e.  provinces  governed  by 


DAREIOS  I.  :    CIVIL   WARS.  383 

Satraps,  did  not  really  consider  themselves  his  obedi- 
ent subjects,  scarcely  his  vassals  ;  but  they  had  all 
felt  the  great  king's  arm,  and  their  name  must 
needs  grace  the  list  of  "  the  countries  that  belonged 
to  him."  In  his  tomb-inscription  there  is  the  fol- 
lowing effective  address  to  his  successor  or  any  one 
who  may  behold  the  monument :  "  If  thou  thinkest 
thus  ;  '  how  many  were  the  lands  which  King  Daraya- 
vush  ruled  ?  ' — then  look  on  this  effigy  :  they  bear  my 
throne,  that  thou  mayest  know  them.  [See  ill.  39  and 
54.]  Then  shalt  thou  know  that  the  Persian  man's 
spear  reaches  far,  that  the  Persian  man  has  fought 
battles  far  away  from  Persia." 


XIV. 


DAREIOS   I. — SECOND   PERIOD:    YEARS   OF   PEACE. 


I.  Six  years  had  been  absorbed  by  the  civil  wars; 
all  the  provinces  needed  rest,  and  Dareios  adjourned 
the  plans  of  conquest  which  his  ambitious  spirit  was 
maturing  until  the  wounds  of  the  state  should  be 
healed  and  the  growing  generation  should  have 
reached  manhood.  For  seven  years  he  devoted  him- 
self to  works  of  peace,  and  showed  a  genius  for  ad- 
ministration and  statesmanship,  such  as  has  never 
since  been  surpassed  and  seldom  equalled  by  the 
greatest  organizers  and  founders  of  states.  His  sys- 
tem was  based  on  the  simplest  principle  :  the  great- 
est possible  prosperity  of  the  subject,  as  conducive 
to  the  greatest  possible  power  and  wealth  of  the  state, 
represented  by  a  vigilant,  active,  and  absolute  cen- 
tral government.  The  means  -^vhich  he  used,  the 
institutions  which  he  created  in  order  to  achieve 
this  great  result,  are  startlingly  modern  in  spirit,  and 
even  in  the  technical  details  of  execution.  In  the  first 
place  he  divided  the  empire  into  twenty  provinces  or 
"satrapies  ;  "  for,  in  the  words  of  an  eminent  modern 
historian,*  "  the  insurrections  which  had  marred  the 
beginning  of  his  reign  had  shown  him  how  apt  a  bun- 

*Justi,  "  Geschichte  des  alien  Persiens." 


DA  RE  10  S  I.:   YEARS   OF  PEACE.  385 

die  of  countries  with  such  utterly  divergent  nationali- 
ties and  interests  is  to  fall  apart,  and  that  the  huge 
empire  could  be  held  together  only  by  the  uniform 
rule  of  a  class  of  devoted  officials,  controlled  and  di- 
rected in  all  their  actions  by  the  king  and  his  coun- 
cillors." Such  a  class  was  formed  of  the  Satraps  and 
their  subordinate  officers.  The  king  appointed  them 
from  the  highest  nobility  of  Persia,  whose  young 
sons  were  carefully  educated  for  this  special  purpose 
under  the  king's  own  ?yes.  The  power  entrusted  to 
the  Satraps  was  very  great,  and  an  extraordinary 
latitude  of  action  was  very  wisely  allowed  to  those 
of  the  remote  provinces,  who  could  at  any  moment 
be  called  upon  to  face  some  unexpected  emergency, 
when  the  delay  of  communication  with  the  central 
authority  could  have  dangerous  and  even  fatal  con- 
sequences. Yet  they  were  never  suffered  to  forget 
the  duty  that  bound  them  on  one  side  to  the  sover- 
eign whom  they  represented,  and  on  the  other  to  the 
people  whose  welfare  was  given  into  their  care. 
Thus  a  Satrap  of  Egypt  was  put  to  death  by  order 
of  Dareios  because  he  had  presumed  to  coin  money 
in  his  own  name.  The  king,  too,  frequently  under- 
took tours  of  inspection  through  the  empire  ;  and 
woe  to  the  Satrap  whose  province  was  found  in  a 
poor  condition,  the  people  needy,  oppressed,  and 
despoiled,  the  fields  neglected,  the  plantations  un- 
cared  for,  the  villages  and  buildings  in  bad  repair, 
while  favors  and  honors  were  liberally  bestowed  on 
those  who  could  show  the  master  a  prosperous  land 
and  contented  population.  As  the  language,  religion, 
and  national  peculiarities  of  each  country  were  scru- 


386  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

pulously  respected,  tlie  local  customs  and  institutions 
in  no  case  interfered  with,  there  was  nothing  to  pre- 
vent such  a  result  but  dehberate  misrule  or  mis- 
management on  the  part  of  the  Satraps  and  their 
of^cials,  who  were  accordingly  held  responsible. 

2.  Not  that  Dareios  was  at  all  neglectful  of  the 
interests  of  the  crown  or  over-indulgent  in  the  mat- 
ter of  taxation.  He  was,  on  the  contrary,  very  keen 
in  all  that  concerned  the  income  of  the  exchequer — 
so  much  so,  that — so  Herodolus  tells  us — those  who 
had  called  Kyros  "father"  and  Kambyses  "mas- 
ter," nicknamed  Dareios  "  huckster,"  because  "  he 
looked  to  making  a  gain  in  every  thing,"  and  more 
especially  because  he  introduced  a  system  of  regular 
taxation,  instead  of  the  voluntary  gifts  which  his 
two  predecessors  had  been  content  to  accept  from 
the  provinces.  Yet,  in  this,  as  in  all  things,  he  pro- 
ceeded with  real  moderation,  justice,  and  caution. 
He  had  the  entire  empire  surveyed  and  every  mile 
of  ground  appraised  according  to  its  capacities  for 
production  ;  on  this  valuation  he  based  an  impar- 
tially graded  land-tax.  It  is  ever  to  be  regretted 
that  these  estimates  perished,  for  in  them  we  have 
lost  the  earliest  known  specimen  of  statistical  work. 
It  was  probably  from  the  original  ofificial  documents 
that  Herodotus  drew  his  list  of  taxes,  which  is  evi- 
dently genuine.  We  gather  from  it  that,  over  and 
above  ground-tax  in  gold,  silver,  or  gold  dust,  most 
countries  paid  a  special  tribute  in  kind,  according 
to  their  respective  staple  produces — horses,  mules, 
sheep,  grain,  ivory,  slaves,  etc.,  besides  tolls  on 
sluices,  and  dues  on  mines,  forests,  and  fishing.    The 


DAREIQS  I.:    YEARS   OF  PEACE,  387 

richest  of  all  the  provinces  was  that  made  up  of 
Assyria  and  Babylonia, — it  paid  by  far  the  largest 
sum,  more  than  even  Egypt  and  Libya.  The  en- 
tire income  of  the  state  is  valued  at  about  165  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  equal  to  eight  times  that  sum  at  the 
present  rate  of  estimating  the  worth  of  money,  yet, 
at  a  rough  calculation  of  the  proportion  between  the 
population  and  the  taxation,  the  burden  scarcely 
amounted  to  one  dollar  per  head.*  Only  Persia 
proper,  the  royal  province,  was  exempted  from  all 
taxes  and  discharged  its  obligations  to  the  head  of 
the  state  in  military  and  civil  service.  Voluntary 
gifts  were  of  course  expected  and  cheerfully  offered 
whenever  the  king  came  among  his  countrymen  and 
clanspeople,  but  as  these  were  occasions  of  national 
rejoicing  and  the  king  on  his  side  was  liberal  with 
presents,  the  good  ofifices  were  in  a  way  mutual  and 
helped  to  maintain  the  old  clan-bond  firm  and 
sacred. f 

3.  All  these  reforms  and  innovations,  however, 
fine  as  they  were  in  theory,  could  have  availed  but 
little  in  practice  without  some  means  of  easy  and 
rapid  communication  between  the  central  power  and 
the  most  outlying  border-lands  of  the  empire. 
Without  such  means  neither  the  Satraps  nor  the 
subject  nations  could  be  made  sufficiently  to  feel 
their  dependence  on  the  royal  authority  ;    nor,   on 

*  Justi,  "  Geschichte  des  alten  Persiens,"  p.  59.  He  says  :  "660 
million  marks,"  which  gives  165  million  dollars,  at  four  marks  to 
the  dollar.     Of  course  all  such  calculations  are  approximative. 

f  An  ancient  custom  demanded  that  the  king  should  give  a  gold- 
piece  to  each  woman  of  Pasargadse  whenever  he  came  to  his  old  clan- 
city. 


388  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

the  other  hand,  could  they  enjoy  the  feeHng  of  secu- 
rity which  comes  from  the  certainty  of  prompt 
advice  and  succor  in  emergencies.  These  considera- 
tions, together  with  others  of  a  purely  military 
nature — the  desirability  of  means  for  the  rapid  and 
unhindered  movements  of  troops — pointed  to  one 
great  need  :  roads.  Roads  then  Dareios  proceeded 
to  construct,  from  end  to  end  of  his  empire,  with 
the  energy  and  thoroughness  which  he  brought  to 
all  he  undertook.  One  of  these  roads  we  can  trace 
along  its  entire  course,  from  Susa  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean coastland.  It  did  not  by  any  means  take 
the  straightest  line,  for  it  had  several  purposes  to 
serve,  not  the  least  of  which  was  to  connect  the 
principal  cities  of  the  west  and  northwest,  those  cities 
which  were  capitals  of  provinces,  held  by  Persian 
governors  and  garrisons.  So  the  royal  road  from 
Susa  went  to  Arbela,  thence  to  Nineveh,  thence, 
touching  the  Tigris  and  crossing  the  Euphrates,  to 
Komana  in  Cappadocia,  from  whence,  stepping 
across  the  Halys  by  a  handsome  fortified  bridge,  it 
went  on  through  Phrygia  to  Sardis  and  the  sea- 
coast.  Where  it  just  skirts  the  border  of  Cilicia 
(before  reaching  Komana),  it  was  protected  by  a 
garrisoned  post  in  the  shape  of  a  gate-building.  All 
along  this  literally  royal  highway  relays  were  placed 
at  regular  intervals,  consisting  of  station-houses 
(there  were  one  hundred  and  eleven  between  Susa 
and  Sardis),  with  saddled  horses — kept  night  and  day 
in  readiness  for  any  royal  couriers  who  might  come 
along  with  despatches,  orders,  or  messages  from  the 
king.     It  is  astonishing  how  quickly  news  and  orders 


DAREIOS  I.  :   YEARS   OF  PEACE.  389 

Spread  through  the  empire  by  this  simple  means, 
Dareios  thus  originated  and  instituted  a  real  postal 
service  ;  nothing  was  wanting  to  make  it  the  exact 
model  of  our  own  mail — -aside,  of  course,  from  the 
greater  facilities  for  rapid  locomotion — but  to  allow 
the  public  the  use  of  the  convenience,  combining  the 
service  of  the  people  and  that  of  the  state,  with 
equal  advantages  to  both.  How  long  it  was  before 
this  obvious  and  very  natural  step  was  taken  we  do 
not  know.  Other  roads  connected  Susa,  which, 
under  Dareios  I.,  became  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
the  capital  of  the  empire,  with  Babylon,  Damascus, 
and  Phoenicia,  with  Agbatana  and  Rhagai  and  the 
remote  eastern  provinces,  branching  off,  near  the 
eastern  boundary,  to  India  and  to  China. 

4.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Dareios,  when  he  en- 
dowed his  empire  with  that  prime  promoter  of 
intercourse  and  civilization — good  roads,  had  the 
interests  of  commerce  as  much  in  view  as  political 
and  military  considerations.  He  gave  many  other 
proofs  of  his  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  his  sub- 
jects in  this  respect,  and  two  of  the  grandest  concep- 
tions of  modern  times  arose  in  his  great  mind  :  the 
necessity  of  uniform  coinage,  and  the  desirability  of 
uniting  the  Red  Sea  with  the  Mediterranean,  and 
thus  opening  a  direct  water-route  to  India,  a 
country  to  which,  moreover,  he  was  the  first  to  send 
an  exploring  expedition.  He  equipped  for  the  pur- 
pose a  fleet,  which,  after  descending  the  Indus  and 
emerging  from  its  mouths  into  the  Indian  Ocean, 
sailed  round  Arabia,  entered  the  Red  Sea  by  the 
Straits    of   Bal-el-Mandeb,    and    pursued    its    course 


390  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

northward  until  it  came  to  anchor  in  the  Bay  of 
Suez.  Having  thus  tested  and  practically  estab- 
lished the  possibility  of  a  direct  Indian  route,  Darei- 
os  proceeded  to  finish  a  canal,  begun  once  on  a  time 
by  Ramses  II.,  then  continued  centuries  later  by 
Necho  I.,  for  the  purpose  of  uniting  the  Nile  with 
the  Red  Sea — consequently,  indirectly,  the  Mediter- 
ranean with  the  Indian  Ocean.  Three  granite  steles 
have  been  discovered  at  different  points  of  the  canal, 
bearing  sculptures  and  a  fourfold  set  of  inscriptions, 
— in  Persian,  Scythian,  and  Assyrian  cuneiform,  and 
in  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  ;  on  one  of  the  steles  a 
profile  face  could  be  made  out,  which  appears  to  be 
an  attempt  at  a  real  portrait  of  Dareios.  This  crea- 
tion of  three  great  statesmen  and  conquerors  evi- 
dently was  premature,  too  much  ahead  of  the  times 
to  be  generally  appreciated,  for  the  canal  soon  fell 
into  neglect,  and  though  it  was  cleared  of  the  sand 
that  choked  it,  and  deepened  some  two  hundred 
years  later,  it  was  once  more,  and  this  time  finally, 
forgotten  and  disused.  It  was  reserved  for  our  own 
age  to  resume  the  work  and  carry  it  out  in  a  new 
and  probably  indestructible  form.  In  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  uniform  gold  and  silver  coinage  Dareios 
was  more  successful ;  but  the  Persian  empire  was  too 
vast,  and  its  component  provinces  too  many  and 
varied  in  race,  culture,  and  customs  to  allow  of 
carrying  out  the  reform  to  its  full  extent,  and  though 
he  consistently  tried  to  call  in  all  the  different  local 
coinages  by  receiving  them  for  taxes,  then  weighing 
them,  smelting  them  down,  and  recoining  them  in 
the  royal  mint  after  the  established  standard,  we  do 


DAREIOS  I.  :   YEARS   OF  PEACE.  39 1 

not  see  that  Babylon,  Asia  Minor,  Phoenicia,  or 
Egypt  ever  renounced  their  own  monetary  standards. 
5.  Seven  years — from  515  to  508  B.C. — were  de- 
voted by  Dareios  to  works  of  peace.  This  short  period 
sufficed  him  for  all  the  innovations  and  reforms 
which  turned  an  empire  loosely  composed  of  discon- 
nected and  incongruous  elements  into  a  compact 
state,  the  first  model  of  modern  monarchies.  It  was 
also  during  this  interval  that  he  began  and  in  great 
part  achieved  the  constructions  which,  being  contin- 
ued by  his  son  and  grandson,  are  the  immortal  glory 
of  the  early  Akhaemenian  era.  We  have  seen  that 
Susa  .was  considered  by  foreigners  and  virtually  was 
the  capital  of  the  empire,  being  fitted  for  the  pur- 
pose by  its  ancient  royal  associations  and  especially 
by  its  vicinity  to  such  important  centres,  always 
needing  supervision,  as  Babylon  and  Agbatana,  as 
well  as  to  the  Syrian  provinces  and  Asia  Minor. 
Yet  Susa  was  by  no  means  exclusively  honored  by 
the  king's  presence.  It  became  customary  for  him 
to  spend  a  portion  of  each  year  at  the  other  two 
capitals,  from  motives  both  of  policy  and  health, 
Babylon  offering  the  inducements  of  a  delicious 
winter  climate,  while  Agbatana,  cool  and  secluded 
amidst  the  Zagros  highlands,  was  an  incomparable 
resort  for  the  summer  months.  But  the  Persian 
monarch  could  not  neglect  his  own  native  state. 
He  was  bound,  on  the  contrary,  to  endow  it  with  a 
royal  residence  that  should  equal,  if  not  surpass  in 
beauty  and  magnificence,  those  of  the  older  rival 
countries.  So  Dareios  selected  a  favorable  and  ap- 
propriate site  in  the  finest,  healthiest,  and  most  fer- 


392  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

tile  part  of  Persia  proper,  and  set  his  artists  and 
craftsmen — many  of  them,  no  doubt,  Greeks  from 
Ionia — to  work,  building  him  a  palace  and  an  audi- 
ence hall  worthy  of  his  greatness.  A  city  naturally 
rose  around  the  pillared  marble  dwelling  of  royalty 
— the  specially  Persian  capital  which  we  know  only 
under  the  name  given  to  it  by  the  Greeks,  Persepo- 
lis,  "  the  City  of  the  Persians."  What  the  name  was 
in  Persian,  has  never  been  known,  but  it  is  most 
probable  that  the  Greek  was  a  translation  of  it. 
This  is  the  city  which,  together  with  its  incompara- 
ble citadel  of  palaces,  perished  in  the  conflagration 
lit  by  Alexander's  own  hand,  in  a  fit  of  drunken 
fury — a  deed  the  eternal  shame  of  which  is  scarcely 
balanced  by  the  conqueror's  many  great  qualities  or 
excused  by  his  extreme  youth.  The  city  must  have 
in  part  survived  or  been  rebuilt,  for  on  its  site  there 
stood  a  Sassanian  city,  of  the  name  of  ISTAKHR.  Of 
this,  as  well  as  of  its  predecessor,  nothing  remains 
but  the  name,  and  some  formless  rubbish — frag- 
ments of  masonr)',  of  earthed  up  walls,  of  loose 
brick,  stone,  iron — like  that  which  alone  marks  the 
place  of  the  once  flourishing  city  of  Bagistana  at  the 
foot  of  the  historical  rock  of  the  same  name,  where 
Greek  and  Sassanian  inscriptions  and  sculptures  but 
poorly  contrast  with  those  of  the  Persian  hero. 

6.  The  Chaldeo-Assyrian  architectural  principle  of 
building  palaces  on  elevated  platforms  was  adopted 
by  the  Persian  inheritors  of  that  ancient  art  ;  but, 
different  therein  from  the  Assyrians,  they  knew  how 
to  save  labor  and  improve  their  work  by  making  use 
of  natural  advantages  and  local  materials.    Such  were 


DAREIOS  I.  :    YEARS   OF  PEACE. 


393 


the  considerations  which  determined  the  selection  of 
the  site  fixed  on  for  the  new  citadel.  The  mountains, 
which  for  some  distance  follow  the  course  of  the  Pul- 
war (see  p.  300),  on  both  sides,  suddenly  open  out 
towards  west  and  east  near  Istakhr.  The  eastern 
spur  falls  off  steepl}^  and   ends  in  a  low,  wide,  and 


j^^  '^^^fSi 


60.    MASONRY  OF  GREAT  PLATFORM  AT  PERSEPOLIS. 

nearly  fiat  rocky  platform,  in  shape  almost  an  irregu- 
lar square,  which  invites  the  builder's  choice.  Com- 
paratively little  preliminary  work  was  needed.  The 
rugged  and  slightly  sloping  surface  was  easily  con- 
verted into  a  triple  terrace,  each  stage  rising  about 
twenty  feet  above  the  preceding  one — a  disposition 
which  gives  to  the  constructions  an  almost  theatri 


394  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

cally  effective  majesty,  set  off  as  they  were  by  the 
dark  background  of  the  rock  against  which  the  ter- 
races leaned,  the  ahuost  perpendicular  face  of  the 
mountain  now  known  as  MOUNT  Rachmed.  The 
outer  edges  of  the  platform  were  cut  down  straight 
to  the  ground,  giving  wall-surfaces  ranging  in  height 
from  fifteen  to  forty  feet,  according  to  the  uneven- 
ness  of  the  soil  above  which  the  first  terrace  rose. 
These  surfaces  were  cased  with  blocks  of  marble  fur- 
nished by  the  abundant  quarries  of  Mount  Rachmed. 
The  construction  of  this  casing  or  marble  masonry, 
the  stairways  which  ascend  to  the  first  terrace 
from  the  plain,  and  those  that  connect  the  three 
terraces,  are,  in  their  way,  no  less  a  wonder,  as  an 
achievement  of  unaided  human  labor,  than  the 
pyramids  of  Egypt  or  the  transport  of  the  Assyrian 
winged  bulls  and  lions.  The  single  blocks  of  the 
casing  are  from  thirty  to  fifty  feet  in  length  (the 
depth  of  an  average  house),  not  less  than  eight  feet 
high,  and  from  four  to  six  feet  in  thickness.  Some 
are  still  longer  ;  and  although  no  cement  or  mortar 
has  been  used,  such  is  the  power  of  cohesion  im- 
parted by  the  mere  tremendous  weight  of  these 
huge  masses,  that  even  now  the  joints  are  scarcely 
perceptible  to  the  eye,  and  the  iron  cramps  which 
held  them  together  in  places,  and  which  have 
crumbled  away  in  the  course  of  time,  leaving 
only  a  rusty  mark,  are  proved  to  have  been  virtu- 
ally a  superfluous  precaution  !  (See  ill.  60.)  This 
is  probably  the  most  perfect  existing  specimen 
of  that  most  ancient  kind  of  masonry  which  has 
been  called  Cyclopean,  and  which  may  have  been 


DAREIOS  I.  :    YEARS   OF  PEACE.  395 

borrowed  from  some  of  the  old  Ionian  city  walls. 
Wherever  this  casing  has  been  preserved,  it  has  also 
kept  its  admirable  polish — so  perfect  that  the  mar- 
ble, to  this  day,  reflects  things  like  a  mirror,  where 
the  surface  has  not  been  in  some  way  injured  or  de- 
faced by  the  barbarous  and  inane  performances  of 
tourists,  who  think  they  achieve  immortality  by 
scratching  their  worthless  names  on  the  most  hal- 
lowed master-works  of  antiquity. 

7.  As  to  the  stairs,  which  always  strike  the  travel- 
ler as  the  most  imposing  feature  of  these  grandest 
of  ruins,  they  are  considered  the  most  astonishing 
construction  of  the  kind  in  the  world.  There  are 
several  of  them,  and  they  are  disposed  rather  irregu- 
larly, according  to  convenience.  Even  the  princi- 
pal stairway,  ascending  to  the  first  terrace  from  the 
west,  is  not  placed  quite  in  the  middle.  It  is  a  dou- 
ble flight,  Avith  a  wide  landing  half-way  up  ;  there 
are  over  a  hundred  steps,  each  not  quite  four  inches 
high,  so  wide  that  ten  riders  can  commodiously 
mount  them  on  horseback  abreast.  The  whole 
is  of  marble,  several  steps  being  hewn  out  of  one 
block.  On  the  southern  side  there  is  another  stair- 
way, a  single  flight,  somewhat  steeper — thirty  steps, 
cut  out  of  one  block  !  The  stairs  that  lead  from 
one  terrace  to  another  are  constructed  on  the 
same  magnificent  scale,  though  somewhat  less  colos- 
sal, and  not  quite  so  gently  graded  as  the  main  stairs. 
When  the  visitor  has  recovered  from  the  bewildering 
impression  hitherto  produced  by  mere  size  and  har- 
mony of  lines,  his  attention  is  claimed  and  enthralled 
by  the  profuse  and   exquisite  ornamentation  which 


=      d   o 


—         O     < 


DAKEIOS  I.  :    YEARS   OF  PEACE. 


397 


covers  every  available  space  of  the  parapet  and 
outer  stair-walls.  The  natural  triangular  panels 
formed  by  the  first  few  steps  are  everywhere  filled 
out   with    an    artistic    composition    representing,   in 


62.       PARAPET   OP   STAIR,    PERSEPOLIS. 

highly  finished  relief  sculpture,  that  favorite  group 
of  Oriental  mythology— the  fight  of  the  Lion  and 
Bull,  in  a  disposition  most  skilfully  adapted  to  the 
limited  space,  and  followed,  as  soon  as  the  widening 
room  permits,   by  processions   of  guards,  while  the 


398 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 


sculptured  inside  of  the  parapet  or  banisters  gives 
the  illusion  of  a  long  file  of  soldiers,  guests,  and  cour- 
tiers ascending  the  stairs,  one  on  every  step.  (See 
ill.  62.)  The  decorative  effect  is  completed  by  As- 
syrian rosettes,  and  a  peculiar  carved  pattern  used  in 
the  lintels  of  all  the  doors  and  windows,  a  distinctive 


63.    CARVED  LINTEL  OF  WINDOWS  AND  DOORS. 
(Persepolis.) 

feature  of  Akhaemenian  architectural  ornamentation 
found  also  in  the  frieze  of  the  palace  at  Firuz-abad 
(see  ill.  52),  and  on  the  rock-sculptured  facade  of  the 
royal  tombs  (see  ill.  56). 

8.  In  the  southern  terrace-wall,  Dareios  placed 
four  large  marble  slabs,  with  the  usual  trilingual  in- 
scription, giving  titles,  a  list  of  subject  nations,  and 
the  customary  invocation  :  "  May  Ahura-Mazda  pro- 
tect  this   land  of  Persia   from    invasion,  dearth,  and 


^ 

^ 

H 

n 

< 

n 

O 

§ 

w 

Pi 

-I 

< 

» 

< 

b. 

' 

O 

M 

400  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

He!"  (/.  e.,  evil),  the  exact  equivalent  of  the  Chaldean 
and  Assyrian  foundation  cylinders.  The  Scythic  in- 
scription completes  the  Persian  one  by  this  state- 
ment :  "  Says  Darayavush  the  king :  These  great 
palaces  have  been  built  on  this  spot,  where  there 
were  no  palaces  before."  A  central  hall,  flanked  by 
two  sets  of  apartments,  of  four  rooms  each,  with  a 
front  entrance  composed  of  a  door  and  four  windows 
opening  on  a  porch  supported  by  four  columns,  and 
forming  at  the  same  time  the  landing  between  the 
two  flights  of  stairs, — such  is  the  simple  and  harmo- 
nious arrangement  which  the  ruins  easily  disclose 
even  in  their  present  mutilated  condition.  The  dis- 
tribution of  the  doors  and  windows  is  one  of  perfect 
symmetry,  each  entrance  being  in  the  middle  of  its 
wall,  greatly  differing  from  the  Assyrian  halls,  where 
doorways  were  opened  anywhere,  near  corners  as 
often  as  not,  apparently  at  random.  The  size  and 
shape  of  the  apartments,  too,  are  very  differently 
proportioned,  quite  in  accordance  with  our  modern 
ideas  on  the  subject,  showing  that  no  difificulty  had 
to  be  encountered  in  roofing  the  Persian  palaces.* 

9.  Behind  this  palace,  the  moderate  proportions  of 
which  show  it  to  have  been  designed  for  the  king's 
own  dwelling-place,  and  more  to  the  east,  occupying 
very  nearly  the  centre  of  the  entire  platform,  is  the 
famous  Hall  of  the  Hundred  Columns,  also  built  by 
Dareios  I.  ;  its  size  and  peculiar  arrangement  sufifi- 
ciently  enlighten  us  on  its  destination :  two  hundred 
and  twenty-seven  feet  every  way,  with  two  entrances 
and  several  windows  in  each  wall,  this  magnificent 
building  contained  only  one  vast   hall,  the   roof  of 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  pp.  62-68 


q  s 


!  - 


<  &, 


402  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

which,  of  mighty  cedar  and  cypress  beams,  was  up- 
borne by  one  hundred  columns — ten  rows  of  ten — 
of  that  peculiar  and  matchlessly  fanciful  type 
which  is  the  most  distinctive  feature  of  Akhaemen- 
ian  architecture.  Tall  and  slender,  they  rested 
lightly  on  their  inverted  flower-base,  carrying  the 
raftered  ceiling  proudly  and  with  ease  on  the 
strong  bent  necks  of  the  animals  which  adorned 
their  capitals.  (See  ills.  49-5 1).  We  have  here  the 
throne  and  audience  hall,  the  reception  and  ban- 
queting hall  of  the  great  Dareios.  If  nothing 
else,  the  sculptures  in  the  eight  doorways  would  as- 
sure us  of  the  fact.  Here  we  see  the  king  seated  on 
his  throne,  which  is  supported  by  rows  of  warriors, 
in  the  flowing  Median  garb  or  the  tight-fitting  Per- 
sian doublet  and  hose,  or  of  figures  personating  sub- 
ject nations.  (See  ill.  54.)  Here  he  receives  ambas- 
sadors or  visitors  bringing  presents.  His  figure  is 
larger  than  nature,  to  elevate  him  above  common 
humanity,  and  the  attendant  who  stands  behind  the 
throne  with  the  fl\'-flapper  wears  the  paitiddna,  as 
though  ofificiating  before  the  sacred  fire  (see  p.  1 14), 
while  the  master  of  ceremonies  holds  his  hand  before 
his  mouth,  and  all  who  approach  the  royal  presence 
keep  their  hands  in  their  long  sleeves  in  token  of 
peaceful  intentions.  There  again  the  king  is  pre- 
sented to  us  as  the  earthly  image  of  Ahura-Mazda, 
fulfilling  his  god-given  mission  of  warring  with  and 
annihilating  the  evil  creation  of  Angra-Mainyu,  by 
stabbing  an  ugly  Daeva  in  the  shape  of  a  monstrous 
composite  animal,  after  the  manner  of  the  Chaldean 
wicked   demons* — the   "Ahrimanian  Beast,"   as    it 

*  See  "  Story  of  Chaldea,"  ills.  54  and  55,  72,  73,  and  74. 


66.      DAREIOS   FIGHTING   A   MONSTER — A    UAliVA    OR    "  AHRIMANIAN 

BEAST." 

(Persepolis,  Hall  of  the  Hundred  Columns.) 


404  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

has  been  called.  At  some  of  the  entrances  winged 
bulls  mount  their  watch,  but  slightly  altered  from 
their  Assyrian  prototypes,  (see  ill.  48).  It  is  easy 
to  imagine  the  royal  throne  placed  somewhere 
towards  the  end  of  the  middle  aisle,  and  the  vast 
hall  adorned  and,  if  need  be,  partitioned  by  curtains 
and  hangings  of  precious  stuffs,  made  priceless  by 
costly  dyes  and  embroideries,  and  which,  according 
as  they  were  looped  up  or  left  to  fall  to  the  ground 
concealed  the  royal  majesty  or  allowed  it  to  shine 
forth  on  the  courtiers  and  guests.  The  rings  and 
other  appurtenances  for  regulating  the  hangings 
must  have  been  somehow  attached  to  the  roof- 
rafters,  which,  like  the  ceiling,  were  almost  certainly 
gilt ;  indeed,  it  is  very  likely  that  the  inner  surface  of 
the  w^alls  may  have  been  cased  in  gold  plating  also, 
after  the  manner  of  the  old  palaces  at  Agbatana ;  a 
number  of  short  metal  tacks  have  been  found,  which 
could  scarcely  have  served  any  purpose  but  that  of 
fastening  such  platings. 

10.  Pillared  halls  and  porticos  being  an  essen- 
tially Aryan  form  of  architecture,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  when  Dareios  built  his  residence  at  Susa  he 
added  to  it  a  reception  hall  similar  to  that  at  Per- 
sepolis,  and,  from  what  the  latter  teaches  us,  we  can 
have  no  difificulty  in  picturing  to  ourselves  the  royal 
banquet  described  in  the  Book  of  Esther,  as  given 
at  that  capital, — perhaps  on  the  king's  birthday,  or 
at  New-Year,  the  two  great  occasions  of  feasting 
and  merry-making  at  the  Persian  court, — by  Xerxes, 
the  son  of  Dareios,  whom  the  Hebrews  have  named 
Ahasuerus : 


67-       DOOR   OF    PALACE   OF   DAREIOS,    PERSEPOLIS. 


4o6  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

"Now  it  came  to  pass  .  ,  .  that  in  those  days,  when  the  king 
Ahasuerus  sat  on  the  throne  of  his  kingdom,  which  was  in  Shushan 
the  paLace,  .  .  .  he  made  a  feast  unto  all  his  princes  and  servants  ; 
the  power  of  Persia  and  Media,  the  nobles  and  princes  of  the  prov- 
inces, being  before  him.  When  he  showed  the  riches  of  his  glorious 
kingdom,  and  the  honor  of  his  excellent  majesty  many  days.  .  .  . 
The  king  made  a  feast  unto  all  the  people  that  were  present  in  Shu- 
shan the  palace  ...  in  the  court  of  tlie  garden  of  the  king's 
jialace ;  where  were  white,  green,  and  blue  hangings,  fastened  with 
cords  of  tine  linen  and  ])urple  to  silver  rings  and  pillars  of  marble  ; 
the  beds  [/.  c,  the  couches  or  seats]  were  of  gold  and  silver  uj^on  a 
pavement  of  red,  and  blue,  and  white,  and  black  marljle."  And 
they  gave  them  drink  in  vessels  of  gold  .  .  .  and  royal  wine  in 
abundance  according  to  the  state  of  the  king  .  .  .  "  (Book  of 
Esther,  ch.  I.,  1-7). 

II.  This  same  Xerxes,  the  son  of  Dareios,  had  a 
palace  of  his  own  at  Persepolis,  of  comparatively 
small  dimensions,  but  his  principal  construction 
there  was  a  fine  peristyle  or  waiting-hall  which  he 
built  at  the  head  of  the  great  western  staircase. 
That  such  was  its  destination  appears  from  the 
sculptures,  as  well  as  from  the  inscription,  which 
calls  it  a  "gate,"  and  we  can  easily  imagine  some 
such  apartment,  where  ambassadors,  visitors,  peti- 
tioners, tribute-bringers,  could  await  the  royal  pleas- 
ure, processions  muster  and  form,  etc.,  to  be  a 
desirable  and  even  necessary  addition  to  the  throne- 
and  audience-hall.  Behind  the  "  gate-building"  came 
another  pair  of  stairs,  also  constructed  by  Xerxes, 
and  leading  up  to  the  second  terrace,  on  which  he 
had  erected,  a  little  apart  from  his  father's  palace,  a 
new  reception-hall  on  a  scale  scarcely  less  magnificent 
than  that  of  Dareios.  Seventeen  of  the  seventy-two 
black  marble  columns  are  still  standing,  though  in  a 


■ _-■"'**"!*'-   -4V^~iS*- 


68.       PILLARS  OF  THE  HALL  OF  XERXES. 


.'  -ii;xU^, 


(Black  Marble.     Height  from  base  to  capital— 44  feet  ;  of  capital — 16  feet  ; 
circumference — 16  feet  ;  52  flutings.) 


408  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

sadly  mutilated  condition,  and  bear  witness  to  the 
splendor  of  the  building,  which  seems  to  have  been 
unenclosed  by  walls.  The  airiness  of  such  an  open 
colonnade  would  be  particularly  suited  for  summer 
festivals  and  receptions,  and  it  may  be  that  it  was 
the  need  of  a  cooler  audience-hall  which  caused  this 
one  to  be  built.  Ruins  of  palaces  belonging  to  later 
Akhasmenian  kings,  and  of  the  same  architectural 
type,  are  scattered  somewhat  irregularly  on  different 
points  of  the  platform,  but  none  are  either  so  exten- 
sive or  interesting  as  those  we  have  attempted  to 
describe. 

12.  It  is  remarkable  that  nothing  is  left  standing 
of  the  masonry  of  the  Persepolitan  palaces  but  the 
doorways  and  windows,  with  their  posts  and  lintels, 
all  of  huge  marble  blocks,  with  no  vestige  of  walls. 
These  ruins  thus  present  the  exact  counterpart  of 
those  of  Assyrian  palaces,  where  nothing  is  left  but 
the  massive  walls.  Mr.  Dieulafoy,  guided  by  his  ob- 
servations and  actual  discoveries  at  Susa,  as  well  as 
by  examination  of  the  rubbish  at  Persepolis,  suggests 
a  more  than  plausible  reconstruction  of  the  missing 
masonry  : 

"  I  think,"  lie  says,  "that  the  Akhaemenian  j^alaces,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  columns,  doors,  windows,  and  stairs,  were  built  in 
brick  cased  with  tiles  ;  that  these  tiles,  colored  in  two  tones,  light 
gray  and  a  grayish  rose-color,*  were  disposed  in  mosaic  patterns  ; 
that  the  high  cornice  above  the  denticules  of  the  entablature  was  or- 
namented with  bas-reliefs  in  blue  tiles  representing  bulls  -f-  ;  that 
into  the  composition  of  the  outer  casing  of  the  walls  there  entered  a 
certain  amount  of  blue  tile.    .    .    .% 

*  Something  like  what  we  call  "  crushed-strawberry." 

f  Just  as  possibly  lions  or  dogs. 

\  Revue  Archeologique,  Juillet,  1885. 


41 0  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND  PERSIA. 

In  another  place,  however,  Mr.  Dieulafoy  admits 
not  having  found  many  fragments  of  tiles  at  Per- 
sepolis,  whence  he  infers  that  the  decoration  in 
glazed  tile-work  was  not  any  thing  as  prevalent  there 
as  it  was  at  Susa,  where  in  fact  all  the  ornamenta- 
tion appears  to  have  been  in  that  material,  probably 
in  imitation  of  Nebuchadrezzar's  palace  at  Babylon. 
In  fact  the  near  and  ever  open  quarries  of  Mt.  Rach- 
med  were  irresistibly  suggestive  of  sculpture,  so  the 
sterner  and  more  solidly  magnificent  Assyrian  mode 
of  decoration  prevailed.  Unlike  the  Assyrian 
sculptures,  however,  the  Persian  ones  do  not  deal 
with  historical  subjects  ;  there  are  no  battles  or 
sieges,  no  marches  in  distant  lands,  no  royal  hunts, 
or  attempts  at  landscapes  ;  all  that  meets  our  eye 
brings  before  us  various  moments  of  court  ceremonial 
regulated  by  the  strictest  of  etiquettes.  Here  we  see 
the  king  on  his  throne,  there  he  meets  us,  seemingly 
walking  into  his  own  palace,  through  its  main  door 
(see  ill.  G"]^ ;  there  again  along  the  outer  wall  of  the 
broad  stair-landing,  his  guards  are  ranged  in  efifigyas 
the  living  ones  no  doubt  stood  in  the  same  place, 
day  after  day,  presenting  arms.  (See  ill.  65).  The 
only  alternation  from  court  pageantry  is  to  religious 
compositions,  and  of  these  the  number  is  limited  to 
one  or  two  subjects  of  a  set,  unchanging  type.  But  if 
Persian  art  was  more  restricted  in  its  range  of  sub- 
jects, it  was  freer  than  the  Assyrian  in  its  treatment 
of  the  human  figure.  Sculptors  and  tile-painters 
had  undoubtedly  seen  Greek  models  and  had  some 
Greek  training ;  very  likely  the  work  was  directed 
by  Greek  artists,  and  the  influence  tells  in  the  natu- 


DAREIOS  I.  :    YEARS   OF  PEACE.  4I I 

ral  handling  of  the  draperies  and  the  disappearance 
of  those  muscular  exaggerations  which  are  so  offen- 
sive in  the  Assyrian  reproductions  of  the  human 
form. 

13.  A  survey  of  the  Persepolitan  monuments 
would  be  incomplete  without  a  mention  of  the  three 
royal  tombs  cut  in  the  rocky  side  of  Mt.  Rachmed, 
just  behind  the  palaces  of  the  living.  They  are  in 
every  particular  similar  to  those  at  Nakhshi-Rustem, 
making  with  these  seven  in  all,  which  leaves  only 
two  of  the  Akhaemenian  kings  unaccounted  for. 
Here  as  there,  the  door  in  the  sculptured  front  is  a 
sham  one,  not  made  to  open,  and  it  has  been  as  yet 
impossible  to  discover  the  real  entrance  to  the 
mostly  capacious  sepulchral  chambers  behind.  All 
we  know,  from  Greek  historians,  is  that  the  bodies 
were  raised  by  means  of  windlasses  to  be  deposited 
in  their  place  of  rest.  The  openings  which  are 
found  at  present  have  evidently  been  made  by  plun- 
derers. All  the  tombs  were  found  empty  and 
robbed.  As  the  tomb  of  Dareios  I.  is  the  only  one 
that  has  an  inscription,  the  others  could  not  be 
identified. 


XV. 


DAREIOS    I.  :    THIRD    PERIOD :    FOREIGN   WARS. 

I.  That  Dareios,  after  several  years  of  peaceable 
and  useful  work,  should  have  deliberately  set  out  on 
a  series  of  foreign  wars,  instead  of  staying  at  home 
to  enjoy  and  let  his  people  enjoy  their  hard-earned 
prosperity,  really  seems  sheer  perversity ;  unless,  as 
has  been  suggested,  "  he  felt  that  for  a  nation  like 
the  Persians  war  and  conquest  were  a  necessity,  in 
order  to  preserve  their  energy  and  escape  the  danger 
of  becoming  effeminate  in  the  enjoyment  of  wealth."* 
His  thoughts  turned  quite  naturally  to  the  west  and 
north.  All  that  was  to  be  reached  in  Asia  being 
already  under  the  Persian  domination,  Europe  was 
now  to  be  brought  under  it,  and  of  course  there  was 
no  lack  of  good  reasons,  commercial  and  political, 
for  such  a  course.  In  the  first  place  the  Black  Sea 
was  to  be  converted  into  a  Persian  lake;  the  nations 
on  its  eastern  and  southern  shore  obeyed  the  rule  of 
Susa  and  Perscpolis,  and  those  on  the  western  and 
northern  shores — the  Thracians  and  the  Scythians — 
should  close  the  circle.  Moreover,  they  were  strong, 
independent,  half-barbarous,  and  might  become  dan- 
gerous neighbors.  So  Dareios  determined,  in  a 
vague  sort  of  way,  to  go  over  and  conquer  Scythia. 

*  Justi,  "  Geschichte  des  alten  Per&iens." 


DA  RE  10  S  I.  :   FOREIGN  WARS.  413 

He  knew  the  way  was  long ;  so  it  was  to  Egypt  or 
to  Bactria ;  he  knew  there  were  some  unusual  ob- 
stacles— a  sea  arm  and  a  great  wild  river :  they 
should  be  bridged  ;  as  for  the  country  and  the  people, 
he  knew  nothing  about  them,  indeed, — but  others 
had  submitted,  why  should  not  they? 

2.  In  this  latter  respect  the  Greeks  had  greatly 
the  advantage  of  him  ;  they  did  know  a  good  deal 
about  the  Scythians  and  their  country.  The  double 
line  of  their  colonies  which  gradually  extended  along 
the  shores  of  Thracia  and  Asia  Minor  had  reached, 
from  river  to  river,  the  mouths  of  the  great  Thracian 
river,  the  ISTER  (Danube),  and  those  of  the  numer- 
ous Scythian  (now  Russian)  ones,  along  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Black  Sea.  These  rivers  flowed  through 
vast  and  fertile  lands,  of  which  they  brought  the 
products  straight  into  Greek  hands,  enlarging  and 
enriching  the  Greek  storehouses  and  commercial 
stations.  One  of  these,  Olbia,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Hypanis  (Bug),  grew  into  a  large  and  luxurious 
city  by  nothing  but  its  corn-trade  and  its  fisheries. 
From  all  accounts,  it  must  have  held  very  much  the 
place  that  Odessa  now  holds,  from  the  same  causes 
and  in  the  same  conditions.  As  Southern  Russia 
now  supplies  half  the  world  with  wheat,  so  it  did 
then,  as  far  as  the  "world"  went  at  the  time,  and 
the  entire  export  trade  was  centred  in  Olbia  as  it 
now  is  in  Odessa.  The  next  great  station  was 
Byzantium,  another  Greek  colony,  situated  on  the 
Bosporus,  where  Constantinople  now  stands.  The 
ships  that  had  taken  their  lading  of  corn  at  Olbia 
had   to   carry  them   out   through   the   Bosporus,  so 


414  MEDIA,    BABYLOiV,    AND   PERSIA. 

Byzantium  held  then,  as  it  does  now,  the  key  of  the 
entire  Black-Sea  trade.  Some  seventy  years  after 
the  time  of  Herodotus  we  find  from  contemporary 
evidence  that  600,000  bushels  of  Scythian  corn  went 
to  Athens  alone  every  year,  and  when  Philip  of 
Macedon,  the  father  of  Alexander,  wished  to  starve 
Athens,  he  tried  to  gain  possession  of  Byzantium.  It 
is  probably  owing  to  the  importance  which  the  people 
of  the  vast  region  answering  to  Southern  Russia  had 
for  the  Greeks,  both  of  the  colonies  and  at  home, 
that  they  took  some  pains  to  explore  it,  and  their 
knowledge  of  it,  as  imparted  to  us  by  Herodotus, 
who  himself  visited  Olbia  and  a  portion  of  the  sur- 
rounding country,  is  far  less  defective  than  on  many 
much  less  remote  places.  Indeed,  the  descriptions  of 
Herodotus  have  become  more  and  more  the  base  of 
all  geographical  and  archaeological  research  on  the 
subject  of  ancient  Russia,  and  where  they  bear  on 
climate  and  the  outer  features  of  the  country,  they 
are  still  found  amusingly  correct. 

3.  Nothing  can  be  truer  than  the  general  remark 
he  m.akes:  "The  country  has  no  marvels  except  its 
rivers,  which  are  larger  and  more  numerous  than 
those  of  any  other  land.  These  and  the  vastness  of 
the  great  plain  are  worthy  of  note.  .  .  ."  Then 
again  :  "  The  land  is  level,  well-watered,  and  abound- 
ing in  pasture;  while  the  rivers  which  traverse  it  are 
almost  equal  in  number  to  the  canals  of  Egypt.  Of 
these  I  shall  only  mention  the  most  famous  and  such 
as  are  navigable  to  some  distance  from  the  sea." 
He  proceeds  to  describe  the  five  chief  rivers  of  that 
part  of  the  world — the  ISTER  (DANUBE),  the  Tyras 


DAREIOS  I.  :   FOREIGN  WAR^.  415 

(Dniestr),  the  Hypanis  (Bug),  the  Bor/sthenes 
(Dniepr),  the  Tanais  (Don),  and  a  few  more  which 
it  is  not  so  easy  to  identify.  The  Danube  he  calls 
"  of  all  the  rivers  with  which  we  are  acquainted  the 
mightiest,"  and  admires  its  volume  of  water  swelled 
by  so  many  tributaries,  each  itself  a  great  river. 
But  of  the  Dniepr  (Borythenes).  he  speaks  with  the 
enthusiasm  which  that  most  beautiful  and  bountiful 
of  streams  has  never  ceased  to  excite  in  travellers  or 
its  own  country  people: 

"  Next  to  the  Ister,"  he  says,  "  it  is  the  greatest  of  them  all,  and 
in  my  judgment  it  is  the  most  productive  river,  not  merely  in  Scythia, 
excepting  only  the  Nile,  with  which  no  stream  can  possibly  com- 
pare. It  has  upon  its  banks  the  loveliest  and  most  excellent  pastur- 
ages for  cattle  ;  it  contains  abundance  of  the  most  delicious  fish  ;  its 
water  is  most  pleasant  to  the  taste  ;  its  stream  is  limpid,  while  all 
the  other  rivers  near  it  are  muddy  ;  the  richest  harvests  spring  up 
along  its  course,  and,  where  the  ground  is  not  sown,  the  heaviest 
crops  of  grass  ;  while  salt  forms  in  great  plenty  at  the  mouth  with- 
out human  aid,  and  large  fish  are  taken  in  it  of  the  sort  called  anta- 
Cfzi  {sturgeon),  without  any  prickly  bones,  and  good  for  pickling." 

Every  word  of  this  applies  now,  even  to  that  last 
touch  about  the  sturgeon,  which  is  to  our  day  a 
favorite  fish  for  pickling.  He  is  not  less  correct 
when  he  speaks  of  the  "  Woodland  "  which  stretches 
by  the  lower  course  of  the  Dniepr,  where  the  river 
divides  into  many  arms,  and  which,  though  not  to  be 
compared  in  thickness  with  the  forests  of  a  more 
northern  tract,  presents  a  refreshing  contrast  to  the 
absolute  barrenness  of  the  surrounding  steppes;  or 
when  he  places  the  most  fertile  lands  higher  up  along 
the  course  of  the  river,  and  describes  them  as  being 
settled  with  a  nation  which  he  calls  "  Husbandmen," 


4l6  MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND   PERSfA. 

or  "Agricultural  Scythians,"  whose  pursuit  was  farm- 
ing, and  who  raised  most  of  the  corn  that  was  sold 
at  Olbia  and  exported.  Beyond  these  he  places  a 
desert  region  or  steppe-land,  ranged  over  by  nomadic 
Scythians,  and  there,  at  no  great  distance  from  the 
river,  he  tells  us  the  tombs  of  the  Scythian  kings 
were  situated.  Modern  research  has  proved  this 
particular  also  to  be  correct,  by  discovering  and  ex- 
ploring the  largest  of  the  innumerable  barrows  or 
mounds  which  there  cover  the  plain,  varying  its  flat- 
ness with  some  undulation,  and  leading  us  to  think 
that  those  steppes  served  as  a  burying-ground,  not 
to  the  kings  alone,  but  to  the  nation  at  large. 

4.  As  he  gets  farther  away  from  the  sea-shore  and 
the  Greek  settlements,  his  descriptions  naturally  be- 
come less  distinct,  less  accurate,  and  at  last  grow 
quite  vague  and  fabulous  in  their  details.  But  even 
then  a  good  many  traits  remain  which  are  easy  to 
recognize  or,  at  least,  to  interpret.  So  his  account 
of  the  climate,  as  far  as  his  personal  observation 
goes,  is  perfectly  true  to  nature  as  well  as  amusing 
with  the  quaintness  of  the  impression  produced  on 
a  Greek  by  the  to  him  unfamiliar  phenomenon  of  a 
frozen  ground  : 

"  The  whole  district  whereof  we  have  discoursed,"  he  says,  "  has 
winters  of  exceeding  rigor.  .  .  .  The  frost  is  so  intense,  that 
water  poured  upon  the  ground  does  not  form  mud,  but  if  a  fire  be 
lighted  on  it,  mud  is  produced.  The  sea  freezes  ...  At  that 
season  the  Scythians  make  warlike  expeditions  upon  the  ice.  .  .  . 
For  winter  there  is  scarcely  any  rain  worth  mentioning,  while  in 
summer  it  never  gives  over  raining  .  .  .  and  thunder  comes 
only  in  summer,  when  it  is  very  heavy.  .  .  .  Horses  bear  the 
winter  well,  cold  as  it  is     .     .     ." 


DAREIOS  I.:  FOREIGN  WARS.  417 

Now  there  is  not  one  word  in  this  that  does  not 
tell.  But  when  we  come  to  such  a  passage  as  the  fol- 
lowing, it  is  not  hard  to  say  that  observation  has 
given  place  to  hearsay : 

"  Above,  to  the  northward  of  the  farthest  dwellers  in  Scythia,  the 
country  is  said  to  be  concealed  from,  sight  and  made  impassable  by 
reason  of  the  feathers  which  are  shed  abroad  abundantly.  The 
earth  and  air  are  full  of  them,  and  this  it  is  which  prevents  the  eye 
from  obtaining  any  view  of  the  region." 

We  are  familiar  through  Grimm's  nursery-tales 
with  the  old  German  snow-myth,  of  Frau  Holla 
emptying  her  feather-beds,  and  so  we  are  pleased 
and  amused  to  see  our  dear  old  friend's  good  com- 
mon-sense giving  him  the  clue  to  what  seemed  to 
him  at  first  only  an  absurd  rumor  : 

"  With  respect  to  the  feathers  which  are  said  by  the  Scythians  to 
fill  the  air  and  to  prevent  persons  from  penetrating  into  the  remoter 
parts  of  the  continent,  or  even  having  any  view  of  those  regions, 
my  opinion  is,  that  in  the  countries  above  Scythia  it  always  snows, 
less,  of  course,  in  the  summer,  than  in  the  winter  time.  Now 
snow  when  it  falls  looks  like  feathers,  as  every  one  is  aware,  who 
has  seen  it  come  down  close  to  him.  These  northern  regions,  there- 
fore, are  uninhajjitable  by  reason  of  the  severity  of  the  winter  ;  and 
the  Scythians,  with  their  neighbors,  call  the  snow-flakes  feathers, 
because,  I  think,  of  the  likeness  which  they  bear  to  them." 

One  can  gather  a  good  deal  more  valuable  in- 
formation through  fanciful  stories  about  cannibals, 
one-eyed  men,  and  griffins.  It  is  plain  that  the  gold 
which  the  latter  guard  is  that  of  the  Oural  mines, 
which  certainly  were  known  to  the  Greeks  of  Olbia 
and  the  other  Black  Sea  colonies ;  and  as  certainly 
there  was  an  overland  route  frequented  by  Greek 
traders;  it  is  said  that  seven  interpreters  were 
needed  for  the  journey,  the  way  lying  through  na- 


41 8  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

tions  speaking  seven  different  languages.  It  is  very 
possible  that  the  Greeks  purposely  kept  these  things 
rather  dark,  so  as  not  to  divulge  the  secret  of  their 
commercial  operations  and  the  sources  of  their 
greatest  profits. 

5.  The  country. of  which  Herodotus  gives  us  so 
detailed  and  animated  an  account  answers  to  the 
southern  half  of  Russia.  Of  the  nations  which  in- 
habited or  roamed  those  vast  and  in  great  part  wild 
regions,  he  only  gives  us  the  names  as  far  as  they 
were  known  to  him,  and  in  the  Greek  forms,  which 
make  foreign  places  and  people  so  hard  to  identify; 
as  to  their  manners  and  customs,  he  dismisses  them 
mostly  with  this  sweeping  and  uncomplimentary  re- 
mark :  "  The  Euxine  (Black)  Sea,  where  Dareios 
now  went  to  war,  has  nations  dwelling  around  it, 
with  the  one  exception  of  the  Scythians,  more  un- 
polished than  those  of  any  other  region  that  we 
know  of."  Accordingly  he  devotes  to  the  Scythians 
many  most  interesting  pages.  In  the  first  place 
he  notes  that  they  really  were  named  Skoloti, 
but  the  Greeks  had  got  into  the  habit  of  call- 
ing them  Scythians.  This  agrees  with  what  we 
know  from  other  sources,  namely,  that  "Scythians" 
was  not  a  race-name  at  all,  but  one  promiscuously 
used  for  all  remote,  little  known,  especially  nomadic 
peoples  of  the  north  and  northeast,  denoting  tribes 
as  well  of  Turanian  as  of  Indo-European  stock;  to 
the  latter  the  Scythians  of  Russia  are  now  uni- 
versally admitted  to  have  belonged.  He  divides 
the  nations  into  the  "  Husbandmen,"  the  only  por- 
tion of    it   that  was  settled  and    given  to  farming 


DAREIOS  I.  :    FOREIGN  WARS.  419 

(see  p.  414),  the  "Royal  Scythians,"  including  prob- 
ably the  royal  and  noble  clans,  and  "  the  wandering 
Scythians,  who  neither  plow  nor  sow,"  whose  coun- 
try, "  the  whole  of  which  is  quite  bare  of  trees," 
answers  to  the  immense  steppe  region  between  the 
Dniepr  and  the  Don.  These  nomads,  like  many 
Turanian  tribes  of  our  own  day  in  Eastern  Russia 
and  Central  Asia,  followed  their  herds  and  flocks 
from  pasture  to  pasture,  living  in  wagons  drawn  by 
oxen  or  tents  carried  on  wagons  and  easily  planted 
into  the  ground.  This  mode  of  life  greatly  impressed 
Herodotus,  as  implying  the  peculiar  manner  of  war- 
fare, the  advantages  of  which  the  Persians  had  just 
found  out  to  their  cost.  Only  he  ascribes  to  pre- 
meditated wisdom  what  was  merely  a  natural  out- 
come of  all  the  conditions  of  their  existence. 

"The  Scythians,"  he  says,  "have  in  one  respect,  and  that  the 
very  most  important  of  all  those  that  fall  under  man's  control, 
shown  themselves  wiser  than  any  nation  upon  the  face  of  the  earth. 
The  one  thing  of  which  I  speak  is  the  contrivance  by  which  they 
make  it  impossible  for  the  enemy  who  invades  them  to  avoid  de- 
struction, while  they  themselves  are  entirely  out  of  his  reach,  unless 
it  pleases  them  to  engage  with  him.  Having  neither  cities  nor  forts, 
and  carrying  their  dwellings  with  them  wherever  they  go  ;  accus- 
tomed, moreover,  one  and  all  of  them,  to  shoot  from  horseback, 
and  living  not  by  husbandry,  but  by  their  cattle,  their  wagons  the 
only  houses  that  they  possess,  how  can  they  fail  of  being  uncon- 
querable, and  unassailable  even  ?  " 

6.  With  the  appearance  and  costume  of  these  an- 
cestors of  the  Russians  we  are  familiar  chiefly 
from  the  marvellously  beautiful  and  finished  works 
of  art  found  in  a  Scythian  royal  tomb  at  Kertch, 
ancient   PanticaP/EON  (a  colony  of   Miletus  on  the 


420  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND   PERSIA. 

extreme  eastern  point  of  the  Crimean  peninsula), 
and  consistini^'  principally  in  vases  of  silver  and  elec- 
tron. They  are  two  or  three  hundred  years  later  in 
date  than  the  time  we  have  arrived  at,  and  of  pure 
Greek  workmanship  ;  but  they  most  certainly,  and 
all  the  more  faithfully,  are  portrayed  from  nature  ; 
the  types  they  represent  could  not  have  changed  in 
so  short  a  time,  since  now,  after  a  lapse  of  two  thou- 
sand years,  we  recognize  in  them  those  of  our  modern 
Russian  peasantry,  where  it  has  not  been  modified 
beyond  recognition  by  contact  wnth  foreigners  or 
new-fangled  imported  fashions.  The  costume  too — 
the  belted  kaftan  with  its  border  of  fur  and  its  em- 
broideries, the  trousers  struck  into  the  soft  boot 
(probably  felt),  and,  in  some  cases,  the  bandaged  feet 
— is  worn,  scarcely  changed  at  all,  in  every  Russian 
village.  Their  fondness  for  vapor-baths,  also,  though 
they  knew  them  only  in  a  rudimentary  and  barbarous 
form,  has  descended  to  the  present  owners  of  the  land. 
As  for  any  others  of  their  customs,  they  appear  savage 
and  crude  in  the  extreme  in  Herodotus'  narrative, 
though  hardly  more  so  than  those  of  many  German 
and  other  warlike  tribes  in  the  early  part  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  It  is  curious  that  he  asserts  that  they 
took  their  vanquished  enemies'  scalps,  and  describes 
the  process  exactly  as  the  American  Indians  have 
always  practised  it.  But  they  must  have  surpassed 
even  these  in  fierceness,  if  it  is  true  that  they  not 
only  hung  the  scalps  to  their  bridle-rein,  taking  pride 
in  these  trophies  in  proportion  to  their  numbers, 
but  "  made  themselves  cloaks  by  sewing  a  quantity 
together."     "  Others,"  we  are  told,  "  flay   the  right 


422  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA 

arms  of  their  enemies,  and  make  of  the  skin  which 
is  stripped  off  with  the  nails  hanging  to  it  "  (as  we  do 
of  lions'  and  tigers'  skins),  "  a  covering  for  their 
quivers."  Such  things  are  entirely  foreign  and,  one 
Avould  think,  repugnant  to  Greek  culture,  which  is 
generally  mild  and  temperate;  yet  Herodotus  merely 
observes  that  "the  skin  of  a  man  is  thick  and  glossy, 
and  would  in  whiteness  surpass,  almost  all  other 
hides !  "  Nor  does  he  express  any  horror  at  their 
way  of  using  their  enemies'  skulls  as  drinking-cups, 
at  feasts,  receptions  of  guests,  and  other  solemn  oc- 
casions, after  casing  them  on  the  outside  with 
leather,  and— if  rich  enough — lining  the  inside  with 
gold.  True,  he  remarks  in  one  place,  that  "  their 
customs  are  not  such  as  he  admires," — a  blame 
which  probably  is  meant  to  cover  these  traits,  and 
some  others  far  more  objectionable,  because  imply- 
ing cruelty  to  the  living.  Such  were  their  human 
sacrifices  and  especially  the  funerals  of  their  kings. 
Not  only  they  put  to  death  and  burned  with  him  at 
least  one  of  his  wives  and  all  his  chief  body-servants 
together,  with  his  favorite  horse  or  horses,  but  after 
a  year  had  elapsed,  strangled  fifty  more  youths  from 
among  his  best  attendants,  and  as  many  of  the  finest 
horses,  and  disposed  them  around  the  mound,  the 
men  astride  of  the  horses,  in  ghastly  imitation  of  a 
mounted  guard  of  honor.  Stakes  passed  through 
the  bodies  maintain  them  in  the  required  position. 

7.  Such  were  the  country  and  nation  which 
Dareios,  surely  somewhat  lightly,  determined  to  in- 
vade, never  doubting  but  that  he  would,  without 
any  very  uncommon  difificulty,  add  it  to  his  empire. 


71.       GREEK  SILVER    VASE,    FOUND    AT    KERTCH    (ANCIENT    PANTICAP^ONJ. 


424  MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

He  would  on  the  same  occasion  make  sure  of  Thracia 
and  the  Greek  cities  on  both  sides  of  the  Bosporus 
and  Hellespont,  as  well  as  of  several  Greek  islands. 
It  is  said  that  one  of  his  brothers  entreated  him  to 
desist,  and  tried  to  make  him  realize  the  great  dififi- 
culties  he  was  going  to  encounter.  But  his  mind 
was  made  up,  and  he  sent  messengers  to  all  the 
Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  with  orders  to  equip  and 
man  six  hundred  ships  with  three  rows  of  oars 
{trieres),  which  were  to  sail  up  to  the  Bosporus  and 
there  to  build  a  bridge  of  ships  across  the  straits, 
while  he  himself  collected  the  contingents  of  the 
several  Asiatic  nations.  His  army  numbered  700,000 
when  he  led  it  from  Susa.  He  found  all  done 
and  the  fleet  assembled  when  he  arrived  at  the  Bos- 
porus, which  he  immediately  crossed,  leaving  the 
bridge  in  the  charge  of  part  of  the  fleet  and  the 
Greek  cities  along  both  sides  on  the  Bosporus, 
although  they  had  but  recently  been  conquered  and 
annexed.  He  had  no  difficulty  with  the  Thracians: 
they  either  submitted  as  he  passed  or  had  given 
"  earth  and  water  "  to  his  envoys  before.  Only  one 
nation,  close  to  the  Danube,  attempted  resistance, 
but  was  crushed  by  numbers.  Besides,  he  did  not  go 
very  far  inland,  but  skirted — at  a  distance — the 
sweep  of  the  Black  Sea,  accompanied  and  supported 
by  the  fleet.  The  trysting-place  was  the  mouths  of 
the  Danube,  which  the  ships  entered,  while  the  land 
army  stopped,  until  the  river  was  bridged,  just  be- 
hind the  Delta,  i.  e.,  the  place  where  it  separates  into 
several  branches.  The  ships  sent  by  the  Ionian 
cities  were  commanded  by  the  respective  tyrants  of 


DAREIOS  I.:   FOREIGN  WARS.  425 

these  cities,  and  to  them  Dareios  entrusted  the 
keeping  of  the  bridge  during  his  absence,  appointing 
a  certain  time  during  which  they  were  to  keep  faith- 
ful watch,  and  after  which  they  might,  if  they  did 
not  see  him  or  his  army,  give  him  up  for  lost  and  re- 
turn to  their  homes. 

8.  From  the  moment  that  Dareios  had  crossed 
the  Danube  and  plunged  into  the  land  of  Scythia, 
which  began  at  once  on  the  opposite  bank,  every 
thing  about  his  movements  becomes  uncertain.  The 
detailed  account  of  his  marches  and  countermarches 
n  all  possible  directions,  as  given  by  Herodotus, 
lacks  consistency,  or  rather  common-sense,  and  can 
easily  be  seen  to  come  through  the  magnifying 
medium  of  Scythian  legends,  not  improved  by  Greek 
rendering.  What  we  can  gather  with  certainty  is 
that  the  Scythians,  after  sending  their  families  away 
to  distant  pastures  and  to  various  neighbors  for  safe- 
keeping, immediately  engaged  in  their  own  peculiar 
mode  of  warfare — that  warfare  which  Herodotus  so 
highly  admires  (see  p.  419),  and  which  consisted  in 
drawing  the  enemy  farther  and  farther  into  the  coun- 
try, never  actually  fighting,  but  always  harassing  him, 
so  as  to  wear  and  starve  him  out,  without  ever  stak- 
ing their  fate  on  the  issue  of  a  battle.  Detachments  of 
their  light  infantry — and  in  fact  they  were  all  light 
infantry — began  to  show  themselves  three  days' 
march  from  the  Danube.  The  ponderous  Persian 
host  at  once  prepared  for  an  engagement,  and  fol- 
lowed, expecting  that  the  enemies  were  showing 
them  the  way  to  a  convenient  battle-ground.  Thus 
Dareios  committed  his  one  and  fatal  mistake  :  he  al- 


426  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

lowed  himself  to  be  decoyed  away  from  the  sea- 
shore, and  consequently  cut  off  from  retreat  and 
supplies  alike.  It  was  long  before  he  discovered  the 
trick,  which  was  continually  repeated,  with  unvaried 
success,  and  when  he  did  he  was  very  far  north,  still 
pursuing  an  elusive,  unfindable  foe.  The  army  by 
this  time  must  have  greatly  suffered  from  want,  not 
of  water,  but  of  provisions.  For  there  were  no  cul- 
tivated lands  to  be  plundered,  no  cities  to  be  sacked, 
and  the  flocks  and  herds  were  kept  out  of  the  way. 
At  length  the  Persians  found  themselves  in  a  land  of 
woods  and  marshes,  by  the  sources  of  some  of  the 
great  rivers.  Here  Herodotus  gives  a  little  incident 
which  has  a  great  look  of  genuineness  about  it  : 

"  This  had  gone  on  so  long,  and  seemed  so  interminable,  that 
Dareios  at  last  sent  a  horseman  to  the  Scythian  king,  with  the  fol- 
lowing message  :  '  Thou  strange  man,  why  dost  thou  keep  on  flying 
before  me,  when  there  are  two  things  thou  mightest  do  so  easily  ? 
If  thou  deemest  thyself  able  to  resist  my  arms,  cease  thy  wanderings 
and  come,  let  us  engage  in  battle.  Or  if  thou  art  conscious  that  my 
strength  is  greater  than  thine,  even  so  shouldst  thou  cease  to  run 
away  ;  thou  hast  but  to  bring  thy  lord  earth  and  water,  and  to  come 
at  once  to  a  conference.'  To  this  message  the  Scythian  king  replied  : 
This  is  my  way,  Persian.  I  never  fear  men  or  fly  from  them.  I 
have  not  done  so  in  times  past,  nor  do  I  now  fly  from  thee.  There 
is  nothing  new  or  strange  in  what  I  do  :  I  only  follow  my  common 
mode  of  life  in  peaceful  years.  .  .  .  If,  however,  you  must  needs 
come  to  blows  with  us  speedily,  look  you  now,  there  are  our  fathers 
tombs  :  seek  them  out  and  attempt  to  meddle  with  them,  and  then 
we  shall  see  whether  or  no  we  will  fight  with  you.  Till  ye  do  this, 
be  sure  that  we  shall  not  join  battle,  unless  it  pleases  us.  .  .  . 
Earth  and  water  I  do  not  send  ;  but  thou  shalt  soon  receive  more 
suitable  gifts.'  " 

9.  Still  the  Scythians  ceased  to  draw  the  Persians 
on,  and  began,  instead,  to   harass  them  with  unex- 


DAREIOS  I.  :   FOREIGN  WARS.  427 

pected  attacks  and   cavalry  night  skirmishes.     And 
soon  came  the  mysteriously  promised  gifts. 

"  .  .  .  The  Scythian  princes  despatched  a  herald  to  the  Per- 
sian camp  with  presents  for  the  king.  These  were  a  bird,  a  mouse, 
a  frog,  and  five  arrows.  The  Persians  asked  the  bearer  to  tell  them 
what  these  gifts  might  mean  ;  but  he  made  answer  that  he  had  no 
orders  save  to  deliver  them  and  to  return  again  with  all  speed.  If 
the  Persians  were  wise,  he  added,  they  would  find  out-  the  meaning 
for  themselves.  So  when  they  heard  this,  they  held  a  council  to 
consider  the  matter.  Dareios  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  Scyth- 
ians intended  a  surrender  of  themselves  and  all  their  country,  both 
land  and  water,  into  his  hands.  This  he  conceived  to  be  the  mean- 
ing of  the  gifts,  because  the  mouse  is  an  inhabitant  of  the  earth  and 
eats  the  same  food  as  man,  while  the  frog  passes  his  life  in  the  water; 
the  bird  bears  a  great  resemblance  to  the  horse,  and  the  five  arrows 
might  signify  the  surrender  of  all  their  power.  To  the  explanation 
of  Dareios,  Gobryas,  one  of  the  seven  conspirators  against  the  Ma- 
gian  "  (and  the  king's  father-in-law),  "offered  another,  which  was 
as  follows  :  '  Unless,  Persians,  ye  can  turn  into  birds  and  fly  up  into 
the  sky,  or  become  mice  and  burrow  under-ground,  or  make  your- 
selves frogs  and  take  refuge  in  the  fens,  ye  will  never  make  your 
escape  from  this  land,  but  die  pierced  by  our  arrows.'  "  * 

This  explanation,  under  existing  circumstances, 
struck  Dareios  himself  and  all  the  other  Persians  as 
by  far  the  more  probable  of  the  two  ;  and  they  lost 
no  time  in  acting  on  the  hint,  if  perchance  it  were 
not  yet  too  late.  Besides,  they  were  now  seized  with 
the  very  reasonable  fear  that  the  lonians  might  have 
broken  faith  with  them,  or  a  detachment  of  Scythi- 
ans might  have  overwhelmed  the  keepers  and  de- 
stroyed the  bridge.  So  they  swiftly  retraced  their 
steps,  and  made  for  the  Danube  in  as  direct  a  line  as 
they    could,  with    their    ignorance  of  the    country, 

*  There  is  of  course  no  proof  of  this  story,  but  it  is  a  pretty  one, 
well  in  keeping,  and  not  intrinsically  improbable. 


428  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 

They  had  not  now  to  complain  of  the  Scythians' 
unwillingness  to  attack  and  fight,  but  were  glad  when 
they  succeeded  in  keeping  them  off  their  track,  or 
in  deceiving  them  by  little  devices,  such  as  keeping 
their  tents  pitched  and  their  camp-fires  burning 
while  they  stole  away  at  dawn. 

lO.  Meanwhile,  the  disaster  which  they  dreaded 
was  very  near  actually  happening.  .Some  Scythians 
had  had  a  parley  with  the  Ionian  princes  and  urged 
them  to  "  break  the  bridge  and  hasten  back  to  their 
homes,  rejoicing  that  they  were  free,  and  thanking 
the  gods  and  the  Scythians."  The  temptation  was 
great.  Here  w'as  a  chance  at  one  stroke  to  restore 
the  liberties  of  all  the  Greek  cities,  and  MiLTlADES, 
a  young  Athenian  nobleman,  who  was  the  chief,  or 
rather  king,  of  the  peninsula  which  skirts  the  Helles- 
pont on  the  European  side,  and  who  had  but  lately 
submitted  to  the  Persian  rule,  was  all  for  following 
the  Scythians'  advice,  on  patriotic  grounds,  thinking 
it  a  shame  to  miss  such  an  opportunity  of  throwing 
off  a  yoke  which,  mild  as  it  might  be,  still  was  a 
form  of  bondage,  of  slavery.  The  Ionian  princes,  at 
the  war  council  which  was  held  on  the  subject,  were 
ready  to  join  him,  when  the  chief  among  them,  HlS- 
TIAIOS,  tyrant  of  Miletus,  who  enjoyed  greater  weight 
and  influence  from  being  the  ruler  of  the  first  among 
the  Ionian  cities,  reminded  them  that  it  would  be 
entirely  against  their  interests  to  break  their  trust. 
"  It  is  through  Darius,"  he  said,  "  that  we  enjoy  our 
thrones  in  our  several  states.  If  his  power  be  over- 
turned, I  cannot  continue  lord  of  Miletus,  nor  ye 
of  your  cities.     For  there  is  not  one  of  them  which 


DAREIOS  I.  :    FOREIGA'  WARS.  429 

will  not  prefer  democracy  to  kingly  rule."  This 
argument  was  found  so  persuasive,  that  when  the 
votes  were  collected,  Miltiades  saw  himself  alone 
of  his  opinion.  It  was  therefore  decided  to  hold  the 
bridge  for  Dareios.  Historians  have  praised  or 
blamed  this  decision,  according  as  they  took  the 
standpoint  of  patriotism  and  love  of  liberty,  or  of 
duty  to  a  trust.  It  was,  however,  not  this  latter 
feeling,  noble  under  any  circumstances,  but  purely 
selfish  considerations  which  influenced  the  Ionian 
princes,  proving,  at  all  events,  the  wisdom  of  Kyros' 
policy  in  placing  native  tyrants  over  the  cities,  then 
showing  them  favor,  honor, — and  trust.  The  newly 
annexed  cities  on  the  Bosporus  showed  more  patriotic 
zeal,  and  destroyed  or  damaged  the  bridge  left  in  their 
charge,  so  that  Dareios,  who  was  now  so  hotly  pur- 
sued by  the  Scythians,  even  after  having  recrossed 
the  Danube,  that  he  could  not  shake  them  off  on 
the  march  through  Thracia,  down  to  the  very  sea- 
shore, had  to  change  his  route,  and  cross  the  Helles- 
pont on  ships  ;  nor  did  he  feel  himself  safe  until  he 
f^ached  Sardis.  Thus  ended  this  extraordinary  un- 
dertaking, the  only  absolutely  unreasonable  act  that 
can  be  charged  to  this  great  king.  Yet  his  losses 
were  not  so  great  as  his  recklessness  deserved  ;  they 
did  not  amount  to  more  than  one  tenth  of  his  army. 
And  one  advantage  was  gained  :  the  subjection  of 
the  Greek  colonies  all  along  the  Thracian  shore,  the 
Hellespont,  and  the  Bosporus.  These  latter  had  to 
pay  dearly  for  their  act  of  rebellion,  for  Dareios,  as 
he  crossed  back  to  Asia,  left  a  general  behind,  with 
another  tenth  of  his  army,  on  purpose  to  punish 
them  and  keep  the  others  in  obedience. 


430  MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND    PERSIA. 

II.  To  the  last  period  of  Dareios'  reign  also 
belong  the  expeditions,  at  one  end  of  the  empire, 
into  Penjab,  and  at  the  opposite  end,  west  of 
Egypt,  across  the  desert,  into  the  territory  of 
Kyrene  and  Barka.  But  neither  of  the  expeditions 
was  conducted  personally  by  the  king  ;  neither  were 
they  of  much  importance  in  the  general  history  of 
the  times,  nor  had  any  very  notable  results,  except 
that  the  near  approach  of  a  Persian  army  caused 
Carthage  to  enter  into  negotiations  and  buy  herself 
off  from  a  threatened  invasion,  by  a  tribute  which  she 
paid  regularly  for  several  years.  Very  different  is 
the  interest  which  attaches  to  the  movements  of  the 
Greek  cities  in  Ionia  and  the  adjoining  province. 
For  there  a  beginning  had  been  made,  a  leaven  had 
been  stirred,  which  was  not  to  be  quelled  with  the 
ease  that  the  Persian  king  had  encountered  till  now 
in  his  dealings  with  these  portions  of  his  empire. 
The  spirit  of  independence  shown  by  the  northern 
cities  had  proved  contagious  after  all,  and  revolts 
and  conspiracies  against  the  foreign  rule  broke  out 
here  and  there.  The  centre  and  soul  of  these  con- 
spiracies was  Miletus,  whose  love  of  liberty  Histiaios 
had  well  judged.  The  beautiful  city  was  besieged, 
taken,  and  destroyed  almost  entirely, — to  the  unut- 
terable consternation  of  the  entire  Hellenic  world. 
Her  citizens  were  deported  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  her 
youths  and  maidens  taken  for  booty  or  sold  for 
slaves,  while  the  rebellious  cities  on  the  Hellespont 
were  burned  down.  The  Persian  rule,  as  it  became 
older,  was  gradually  changing  its  character — growing 
heavier  and   harsher,   and,   when   opposed,    drifting 


w^^"^ 


432  MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 

into  ordinary  Oriental  cruelty.  Besides,  Dareios  had 
returned  home  bitterly  mortified  and  irritated  by 
his  bootless  and  senseless  expedition  into  the  wilds 
of  Scythia,  and  gladly  vented  his  irritation  on  those 
who  displeased  him.  His  great  grudge  was  now 
against  the  Greeks — not  those  of  Asia,  but  those 
across  the  sea,  the  people  of  Hellas.  He  knew  that 
they  were  one  nation  with  these  rebellious  colonies, 
that  they  gave  them  support,  encouragement,  and 
sympathy,  and  determined  to  make  an  end  of  the 
entire  obnoxious  race.  Little  did  he  dream  that  the 
mortification  and  losses  of  his  Scythian  campaign 
were  as  nothing  to  those  which  he  was  to  ex- 
perience at  the  hands  of  this  nestful  of  traders, 
seamen,  farmers,  and  craftsmen  ;  that  Miltiades,  after 
being  overruled  by  his  timid  and  selfish  compeers  on 
Battle  of        the  Danube,  would  yet  satisfy  his  patriotic 

Marathon,  .  ■'  /r  i  i 

490  B.C.  ambition,  and,  as  the  hero  of  Marathon,  be 
a  check  on  the  overwhelming  deluge  from  the  East  ; 
or  that  not  only  not  he  himself,  but  his  children, 
his  children's  children  should  ever  be  able  to  achieve 
the  task  which  he  now  undertook,  with  all  the  cau- 
tion and  preparation  of  a  wise  general,  indeed,  but 
with  absolute  faith  in  its  quick  and  easy  completion. 
But  this  glorious  struggle  and  triumph  of  the  few 
lifted  to  superhuman  heroism  by  an  ennobling  moral 
principle,  as  against  the  merely  brutal  force  of  num- 
bers, does  not  properly  belong  any  more  to  the  history 
of  the  East,  nor  to  that  of  remote  antiquity  :  it  is 
the  dawn  of  a  new  star,  in  the  West,  and  of  times 
which,  from  their  spirit,  actors,  and  achievements, 
may  almost   be   called   modern.     At  the   bottom  of 


DAREIOS  I.  :   FOREIGN  WARS.  433 

the  new  departure  lies  the  difference  between  the 
ideals — the  conception  of  the  beauty  and  dignity  of 
political  and  social  life — set  up  by  the  Oriental  and 
Western  man  :  "  A  good  master  !  "  is  the  prayer 
and  ideal  of  the  Asiatic.  "  No  master  !  Liberty  at 
any  price,  as  the  highest  good  in  itself  !  "  is  that 
of  the  Greek.  And  the  Greek  wins  the  day,  for  his 
own  time  and  for  his  own  race,  and  for  future  times 
and  races  to  come. 


INDEX. 


Aahmes,  see  Amasis. 
Ab-Karkha,     ancient      Choaspes, 

river,  334. 
Achasans,  an  early  Greek  nation, 

of  Pelasgic  stock,  202,  203. 
Aderbeidjan,  see  Atropatene. 
Adityas,  a  group  of  Aryan  deities, 

41- 

Aeshrna-Daeva,  first  of  Daevas, 
98  ;  see  Asmodeus. 

Agamtunu,  see  Agbatana. 

Agbatana  (modern  Hamadan), 
capital  of  Media,  262  ;  palace 
and  citadel  of,  263-266. 

Ahasuerus,  Hebrew  name  of 
Xerxes,    404. 

A  hi,  the  Aryan  Cloud-Serpent,  47. 

Ahriman,  see  Angra-Mainyu. 

Ahuna-Vairya  (Parsi  Honover), 
the  most  sacred  and  potent  text, 
86;  itspower  over  the  fiends,  87. 

Ahura-Mazda,  the  supreme  god 
of  Eran,  meaning  of  the  name, 
61  ;  originally  a  sk)'-god,  61,  62; 
his  connection  with  Mithra,  62, 
63  ;  the  chief  of  the  Amesha- 
Spentas,  75  ;  their  creator,  77. 

Airydna-Vaeja,  ^  the  primeval 
home   of   the    Aryas,  37. 

Aji-Dahaka  (same  as  Aji),  88. 

Aji,  the  Fiend-Serpent,  80  ;  see 
Ahi. 

Akhsemenes  (Hakhamanish), 

prince  of  the  Pasargadae,  the 
founder  of  the  Persian  heredi- 
tary monarchy,  279,  286. 


Akh?emenidre,  name  of  the  dynasty 
founded  by  Akhtemenes,  279  ; 
genealogical  table  of  the,  287. 

Ako-mano,  "  Worst  Mind,"  op- 
posed to  Vohu-mano,  103. 

Alarodians,  supplanted  by  Aryans 
in  Urartu,  187. 

Alexander  the  Great  of  Mace- 
don  burns  down  Persepolis,  27. 

Alborj,  see  Hara-Berezaiti. 

Allegory,  as  different  from  myth, 
72. 

Alyattes,  king  of  Lydia,  aggran- 
dizes Lydia,  219  ;  his  war  with 
Media,  220  ;  makes  peace  with 
Kyaxares  and  marries  his  daugh- 
ter to  Kyaxares'  son  Astyages, 
221  ;  the  greatest  of  the  Mer- 
mnadae,  306. 

Amardians,  or  Mardians,  one  of 
the  nomadic  Persian  tribes, 
probably  un-Aryan,  278. 

Amasis  (Aahmes)  dethrones 
Hophra  and  usurps  the  crown 
of  Egypt,  307  ;  his  liberal  poli- 
cy obnoxious  to  the  Egyptians, 
347,  348  ;  prepares  against  a 
Persian  invasion  under  Kam- 
byses,  348,  349. 

Amazons,  origin  of  the  fable,  198- 
201. 

Ameretat,  see  Haurvatat  and 
Ameretat. 

Amesha-Spentas,  the  seven 
"  Bountiful  Immortals,'"  74- 
78  ;  the  Amshaspands  or  arch- 
angels of  the  Parsis,  74. 

Ammon,  temple  of,   and  expedi- 


436 


MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 


tion  sent  against  the  Ammoni- 
ans  by  Kambyses,  355. 

Amshaspands,  see  Amesha-Spen- 
tas. 

Amytis,  or  Amuhia,  queen  of 
Nebuchadrezzar  of  Babylon, 
221  ;  the  Hanging  Gardens 
constructed    for,    234. 

,   daughter  of  Astyages  of 

Media,  probably  married  to  Ky- 
ros,  295. 

Anduan,  see  Anshan. 

Angra-Mainyu  (Ahriman),  the 
Arch-Fiend,    88. 

Anqiietil  Dtipcrron,  French  schol- 
ar and  traveller,  his  journey  to 
India  in  search  of  Parsi  manu- 
scripts, 8-1 1  ;  his  success,  11, 
12  ;  abused  by  William  Jones 
and  other  scholars,  ib.;  his  real 
value,  13. 

Anshan,  also  Anzan,  Assan,  and 
Anduan,  a  part  of  Elani,  278  ; 
occupied  by  the  Persians,  280. 

Anzan,  see  Anshan. 

Apdm-Napdt,    "  Son   of  the  Wa- 
ters," a  name  of  Lightning,^  45, 
•  Apanm-Napat,  a   name  of   Atar. 
80  ;  see  Apam-Napat. 

Apaosha,  the  Drought  Fiend,  his 
conflict  against  Tishtrya,  82,  S3. 

Apollo,  the  Greek  Sun-god,  his 
shrine  and  oracle  at  Delphi, 
189,  210  ;  at  Miletus,  209. 

Apries,  see  Hophra. 

Aptya,  see  Trita. 

Arabs,  their  conquest  and  oppres- 
sion of  Persia,  2-4. 

Araniati,  an  Aryan  deity,  76. 

Ardvi-Siira  Andhita,  the  celestial 
spring,  Eranian  goddess,  65. 

Ardys,  king  of  Lydia,  son  of  Gy- 
ges,  218. 

Ariaramnes  (Ariyaramana  on 
Persian  monuments),  son  of 
Teispes  and  king  of  Persia, 
280,  286. 

Ariyaramana,  see  Ariaramnes. 

Armenians,  the  Aryan  settlers  of 
Urartu,  187. 


Arsames  (Arshama  on  Persian 
monuments),  son  of  Ariaramnes 
and  king  of  Persia,  280,  286. 

Art,  Persian,  oldest  relics  of,  at 
Pasargadse,  303,  304  ;  imitative, 
ib.;  at  Susa,  333-343  ;  at  Per- 
sepolis,  392-404  ;  compared  to 
Assyrian,  410. 

Artaxerxes,    palace    of,  at    Susa, 

334-. 

Artemis,  temple  of,  at  Ephesus, 
209. 

Afyas,  primeval,  37  ;  their  nature- 
worship,  38-40  ;  their  Sun- 
Myth,  43  ;  their  Storm-Myth, 
44  ;  their  ideas  of  sacrifice,  47- 

5\'  . 
Aryenis,    daughter     of    Alyattes., 

married  to  Astyages,  son  of  Ky 

axares,  221. 
Asha-Vahishta,     "  Perfect     Holi. 

ness,"  one  of  the  Amesha-Sper. 

tas,  75. 
Ashavan,  follower  o'^  Truth,  103. 
Asia    Minor,    never    subdued    by 

Assyria,    1S6,   187  •     subject  to 

Greek     influences,     190,     202  • 

Greek  colonies  in,  207. 
Asmodeus,  the  Hebrew  equivalent 

of  Aeshma-Daeva.  157. 
Aspahe-ashtra,    an    iii&£iurr.ent   of 

punishment    in.    ihc   Vendidad, 

158. 
Assan,  see  Anshar. 
Astyages  (Ishtuvegu  on  cuneiform 

monuments;,  son   01    Kyaxares, 

marries    Aryenis,    daughter    of 

Alyattes,    king  of    Lydia,   221  : 

succeeds   Lis   father    in    Media 

224  ;    his  contemptible  charac 

ter,  261  ;  dethroned   by   Kyros. 

from   cylinders,  289  ;  from  He 

rodotus,  290  ;  generously  treat 

ed  by  Kyros,  296. 
A  sura,  "  Lord,"  by-word  of  Dy- 

aus  and  Varuna,  40. 
Asura,     Sanskrit     equivalent     of 

Ahsura,    61  ;  used   in    an    evil 
^sense,  lOO. 
Atar,  Fire,  connection  with  Ahu- 


INDEX. 


437 


ra-Mazda,  62  ;  his  demands  on 
men,  79. 

Atesh-Gah,  fire  altar,  118,  152. 

Atharuan,  one  of  the  oldest  Sans- 
krit names  for  "  Lightning,"  42; 
the  son  of  Varuna,  16  ;  deriva- 
tives,  16. 

Athravan,  the  Eranian  priests  in 
the  Avesta,  150,  152. 

Athwya,  see  Thraetaona. 

Atrina,  the  first  impostor  and 
usurper  of  Elam,  under  Dareios 
I.,  374  ;  captured  and  slain,  376. 

Atropatene,  modern  Aderbeidjan, 
144  ;  the  country  of  sacred  fires, 
152. 

Avesta,  the  now  generally  accept- 
ed name  for  the  sacred  book  of 
the  Eranians,  20  ;  its  compo- 
nent parts,  29-31. 

Avesta-u-Zend,  proper  name  of 
the  sacred  book  of  the  Erani- 
ans, 20. 

Avestan  Creed,  or  Profession  of 
Faith,    III. 

Avestan,  the  now  generally 
adopted  name  for  the  language 
of  the  Avesta,  20. 

Avil-Marduk  (Evil-Merodach  of 
the  Bible),  son  and  successor  of 
Nebuchadrezzar,  319. 

B. 

Babil,  mound  of ;  uncertainty 
about,    233. 

Babylon,  walls  of,  built  by  Nebu- 
chadrezzar, 228-230  ;  the  great 
bridge  at,  231  ;  the  palace,  232  ; 
the  hanging  gardens,  234-238  ; 
temple  of  Bel  at,  238-240  ;  sub- 
mits to  Kyros,  327-328. 

Babylonian  Empire  ;  its  share  of 
the  Assyrian  spoils,  173. 

customs,  242-260. 

• women,  independent  position 

of,  255-257. 

Bactria,  probably  the  country  of 
King  Vishtaspa,  Zarathushtra's 
friend,  26. 

Bagistana,  see  Behistun. 


Bakhdhi,  capital  of  ancient  Bac- 
tria, mentioned  in  the  Avesta, 
26. 

Bakhtiyari  mountains,  278. 

Barashnum,  the  great  nine  nights' 
purification,  136. 

Bardiya  (called  by  the  Greeks 
Smerdis),  younger  son  of  Kyros 
the  Great,  345  ;  assassinated  by 
order  of  Kambyses,  350  ;  per- 
sonated by  an  impostor,  357. 

Baresma,  bundle  of  sacred  twigs, 
118  ;  120  ;  probably  introduced 
by  Turanian  influences,  148,  149. 

Barsua,  see  Parsua. 

Behistun  or  Bisutun,  ancient  Bag- 
istana ;  rock  of,  282  ;  explora- 
tion of,  by  Sir  Henry  C.  Rawlin- 
son,  284  ;  sculpture  and  inscrip- 
tions on  the  rock  of,  285,  286, 
360,  361,  366,  381,  382. 

Bel-shar-uzzur,  see  Belshazzar. 

Belshazzar  (Bel-shar-uzzur),  son  of 
Nabonidus,  322. 

Bertin,  Mr.  Geo.,  Assyriologist, 
252  and  254,  notes. 

Bombay,  city  on  the  western  coast 
of  India,  head-quarters  of  the 
Parsis,  5,  6. 

Borsip,  temple  of  Nebo  at,  227. 

Borysthenes,  modern  Dniepr,  a 
Scythian  river,  described  by 
Herodotus,    415. 

Bosporus,  413  ;  Dareios  crosses  it 
on  a  bridge  of  ships,  424  ;  Greek 
cities  on,  rebel,  429. 

Bourchier,  Geo?-ge,  English  travel- 
ler and  scholar,  8. 

Branchidte,  the  hereditary  priests 
of  Apollo  at  Miletus,  209. 

Bug,  Russian  river,  see  Hypanis. 

Bunanitu,  a  Babylonian  woman, 
often  recurring  in  the  Egibi 
tablets,  251,  256,  259,  note. 

Bundehesk,  a  Pehlevi  sacred  book, 
32. 

Burnouf ,  Eugene,  French  Oriental- 
ist ;  his  work  on  the  Zoroastrian 
books,  14,  15. 

Byzantium,  a  Greek  colony  on  the 


438 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND   PERSIA. 


Bosporus,  controls  the  trade  of 
the  Black  Sea,  413,  414. 

C. 

Cappadocia,  a  country  of  Asia 
Minor;  Hittite  traces  in,  198- 
201. 

Caria,  a  country  of  Asia  Minor  ; 
troops  from,  support  Gyges,  18S. 

Chinvat  Bridge,  95,  note,  loS  ; 
kept  by  dogs,  140  ;  mentioned 
in  the  Gathas,  162,  165. 

Chishpaish,  see  Teispes. 

Choaspes,  river  of  Susa  ;  only 
water  drunk  by  Persian  kines, 

Cilicia,  a  country  of  Asia  Minor  ; 
submits  to  Cyrus,  317. 

Coining,  invented  by  the  Lydians, 
212-217. 

Corpses,  impurity  of,  124  ;  how  to 
dispose  of,  124-128  ;  pollution 
by,  and  purification,  135-137  ; 
not  to  be  carried  by  one  man 
alone,  138  ;  how  to  be  treated  in 
winter,  out  of  reach  of  Dakhmas, 
132,  142. 

Cylinder,  containing  proclamation 
of  Kyros,  281-2S2,  327  ;  annals 
of  Nabonidus,  289,  328. 

Cyprus,  isle  of , occupied  by  Amasis. 

D. 

Daevas,  demons,  fiends,  64. 

Daevayasnian,  meaning  of  the 
word,    95. 

Dakhmas,  the  Zoroastrian  ceme- 
teries, 124-128  ;  impurity  of,  and 
meritoriousness  of  pulling  them 
down,  131  ;  original  meaning  of 
the  name,  370. 

Danube,  see  Ister.  Dareios 
crosses  it  on  a  bridge  of  ships, 
424.^ 

Darayavush,  see  Dareios. 

Dareios  I.,  son  of  Hystaspes, 
king  of  Persia,  successor  of 
Kambyses  II.  (Darayavush  on 
the   Persian    monuments)  ;    his 


sculptures  and  inscriptions  on 
the  rock  of  Behistun,  282-287  ; 
his  account  of  Gaumata's  usurpa- 
tion, 361  ;  plots  against  the  false 
Bardiya,  362  ;  with  six  compan- 
ions attacks  and  slays  him,  364- 
365  ;  his  tolerance  and  respect 
towards  foreign  religions,  368  ; 
his  tomb  at  Nakhshi-Rustem, 
369  ;  himself  a  Mazdayasnian, 
369,  370.;  faces  and  fights  down 
rebellion  in  all  the  provinces, 
372-381  ,  institutes  the  sa- 
trapies, 384-3S6  ;  introduces 
regular  taxation,  386,  3S7  ;  con- 
structs roads,  and  founds  the 
postal  system,  387-389  ;  unites 
the  Mediterranean  with  the  Red 
Sea,  389,  390  ;  introduces  uni- 
formity of  coinage,  390  ;  founds 
Persepolis,  391  ;  his  buildings 
there,  392-404  ;  invades  Scythia, 
422-425  ;  his  unsuccessful  cam- 
paign, 425-429  ;  prepares  a 
campaign    against    Hellas,    432. 

Delitzsch,  Professor  Friedrich,  on 
the  House  of  Egibi,  246. 

Delphi,  shrine  and  oracle  of  Apollo 
at  ;  questioned  by  Gyges,  189  ; 
210. 

Deniavend,  Mt.,  highest  peak  of 
the  Elburz  range,  64,  note  ;  Aji- 
Dahak  chained  under,  97,  note. 

Destur,  Parsi  high-priest,  13,  15. 

Devas,  gods  of  light  in  India,  99. 

Dieulafoy,  Mr.  E.,  French  ex- 
plorer of  Susa,  319,  333-343  ; 
on  the  palaces  at  Persepolis, 
40S-410. 

Dizful,  a  modern  city  near  Susa, 
333- 

Djamaspa,  a  follower  of  Zara- 
thusthtra,    108. 

Djumdjuma,  mound  of, — site  of 
the  house  of  Egibi,  244. 

Dniepr,  see  Borysthenes. 

Dniestr,  see  Tyras. 

Dog,  the  sacred  animal  of  the 
Avesta,  139  ;  the  care  and  re- 
spect due  to  it,  139-141. 


INDEX. 


439 


Don,  see  Tanais. 

Dorians,  one  of  the  Greek  tribes  ; 
their  descent  from  Epirus  and 
Thessaly  into  lower  Greece  and 
the  Peloponnesus,  204-207. 

Dosabhai  Fratnji  Karaka,  a  mod- 
ern Parsi  writer,  quoted,  4. 

Drttj,  the  Spirit  of  I,ie,  106  ; — 
Nasu,  the  corpse  fiend,  93,  135  ; 
mode  of  purification  from  the, 
136. 

Drujvan,  follower  of  falsehood, 
103. 

Dydus,  the  Aryan  sky-god,  40. 


E. 


Eclipse,  battle  of  the,  220. 

Egibi,  banking  house  of,  at  Baby- 
lon, 244-250  ;  the  name  prob- 
ably equivalent  to  the  Hebrew 
Yakub,  246. 

Elam,  see  Susiana. 

Elburz,  64,  note. 

Elvend,  Mt.,  see  Mt.  Orontes. 

Ephesus,  a  Greek  city  in  Asia  Mi- 
nor, temple  of  Artemis  at,  208, 
209. 

Eranians,  one  of  the  great  divi- 
sions of  the  Aryan  race  in  Asia, 
15  ;  their  migrations  and  hard 
struggles  with  nature,  57-59 ; 
their  character,  their  dualism 
and  its  origin,  59,  60  ;  their  lack 
of  imagination,  65,  66. 

Ethiopians,  conquered  by  Kam- 
byses,  355. 

Evil-Merodach,  see  Avil-Marduk. 

Ezekiel,  his  prophecy  about  Tyre, 
183  ;  about  Egypt,  184. 


F. 


Ears  or  Farsistan,  see  Persis. 
Feridun,    Eranian  hero-king,   97, 

note. 
Fire-  Worshippers,  name  given  to 

the   Parsis,    a   misnomer,    i,    6. 
Frangrasyan,  a  Turanian    ruffian, 

81. 


Fraskaosiro ,  a  follower  of  Zslth- 
thushlra,  108. 

Fravartish  (Phraortes),  the  impos- 
tor and  usurper  of  Media,  under 
Dareios  I.,  376  ;  his  capture  and 
execution,  380. 

Fravashis,  Spirits  of  the  Departed, 
71  ;  supply  their  kindred  with 
water,  83,84,  154;  transformed 
probably  under  Turanian  influ- 
ence, 155  ;  in  the  Pehlevi  peri- 
od, 156. 

G. 

Ganges,  great  river  of  India,  56. 

Gaokerena,  or  White  Haoma,  the 
celebrated  Tree  of  Life,  65. 

Garmapada,  fifth  month  of  the 
Persian  calendar  ==  July— Au- 
gust,   360. 

Garo-nmana,  the  Eranian  Para- 
dise,  63. 

Gdthas  (Songs)  oldest  portion  of 
the  Avesta,  24 ;  contain  Zara- 
thushtra's  own  teaching,  97. 

Gaumata,  the  Magian,  an  impos- 
tor ;  personates  Bardiya,  son  of 
Kyros  and  usurps  the  crown, 
360  ;  slain  by  Dareios  and  his 
six  companions,  365. 

Gebers,  see  Parsis. 

Gerrha,  a  Babylonian  colony  on 
the  Arabian  coast,   241. 

Geush-Urvan,  the  guardian  of  cat- 
tle, 100  ;  his  petition  to  Ahura- 
Mazda,  loi. 

Gobryas,  the  Mede,  a  general  of 
Kyros,  occupies  northern  Baby- 
lonia and  Babylon,  328. 

father-in-law    of    Dareios  I., 

one  of  the  seven  who  slew  Gau- 
mata the  Magian. 

Gomez,  purification  by,  136. 

Gujerdt,  or  Guzerat,  a  peninsula  of 
India,  5. 

Guyard,  Stanislas,  French  Assyri- 
ologist,  146,  note. 

Gyges  (Gugu),  founder  of  the  Ly- 
dian  dynasty  of  the  Mermnadje, 
story  of,  188,  189  ;  his  gifts  to 


440 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,    AND    PERSIA. 


the  Delphic  Apollo,  210  ;  proba- 
bly invented  coining,  212. 


H. 


Hakhamanish,  see  Akhsemenes. 

Halevy,  French  Semitist,  146, 
note. 

Ilalys,  modern  Kizil-Irmak,  a  river 
of  Asia  Minor,  187. 

Haniadan,  see  Agl:)atana. 

Hanging  gardens  at  Babylon,  234- 
238. 

Haoiiia,  the  sacrificial  liquor,  30  ; 
"  White  "  or  Gaokerena,  65, 
118,  120 

Hara-Berezaiti,  the  sacred  moun- 
tain of  Eranian  myth,  63. 

Haraiti-Bareza,  see  Hara-Berez- 
aiti. 

Harlez,  Mgr.  C.  de,  French  trans- 
lator of  the  Avesta,  his  views  on 
Turanian  influences  in  the  Av- 
esta,  147-156. 

Harpagos,  a  Median  lord,  helps 
Kyros  to  overthrow  Astyages, 
290  ;  part  assigned  to  him  in  the 
fabulous  legend  of  Kyros'  child- 
hood, 292-293  ;  conquers  the 
Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor  for 
Kyros,  316. 

Harpies,   Lycian   death-goddesses, 

193- 
Haurvatatand  Ameretat,  "  Health 

and  Immortality,"  the  two  last 

Amesha-Spentas,  76. 
Hebrew    afhnities,  in   the   Avesta, 

156-158. 
Hellas,  the  national  common  name 

of  Greece,  202. 
Hellenes,    national    name    of    the 

Greeks,   204. 
Hellespont,  crossed  by  Dareios  in 

his  retreat  from  Scythia,  429. 
Hermos,  a    river   in    Lydia,    207, 

312. 
Herodotus,  his  description  of  Ba- 
bylonian customs,  242-244. 
Hindus,  one  of  the  great  divisions 

of  the  Aryan  race  in  Asia,  15. 


Histiaios,  tyrant  of  Miletus,  per- 
suades the  Ionian  princes  to 
keep  the  bridge  on  the  Danube 
for  Dareios,  428. 

Hittite,  sanctuaries  in  Asia  Minor, 
198-201. 

Hophra  (Apries),  king  of  Egypt, 
succeeds  his  father  Necho  II., 
180  ;  goes  to  the  rescue  of  Jeru- 
salem, but  is  routed  and  driven 
back,  180,  181  ;  dethroned  by 
Amasis,    307. 

Httkaiiya,  a  peak  of  the  Hara- 
Berezaiti,  65. 

Huzvaresh,  the  Semitic  part  of  the 
Pehlevi  texts,  22. 

Hvareno,  "  Kingly  Glory,"  80,  81. 

Hypanis,  modern  Bug,  a  Scythian 
river,  413  ;  415. 

Hystaspes  (Greek  form  of  Vish- 
taspa),  father  of  Dareios  I.,  2S6  ; 
was  heir  presumptive  but  never 
reigned,  288. 

I. 

Iba,  son^of  Silla,  a  man  named 
in  the  Egibi  tablets,  246. 

Iddina-Marduk,-  son  ^of  Basha,  a 
man  named  in  the  Egibi  tablets, 

257. 
Imgur-Bel,  inner  wall  of  Babylon, 

230. 
India,  its  geographical  conditions 

and  influence  on  the  Aryan  con- 
querors, 56-57. 
Indo-Eranians,  37. 
Indra,    the    Aryan    Thunder-god 

46. 
Indus,  great  river  of  India,  56. 
lonians,    one    of     the    old    Greek 

tribes,  of  Pelasgic  stock,  204. 
Ishtuvegu,  see  Astyages. 
Istakhr,  modern  name  of  the  site 

of  Persepolis,  392. 
Ister,  modern  Danube,  413,  414. 


J. 


Jeconiah,  see  Jehoiachin. 
Jehoahaz,    son    and    successor    of 


INDEX. 


441 


Josiah,  submits  to  Necho,  and 
is  carried  away  captive,   171. 

Jehoiakim,  another  of  Josiah's 
sons,  succeeds  his  brother  Jeho- 
ahaz,  172  ;  submits  to  Nebu- 
chadrezzar, 174  ;  dies,  176. 

Jehoiachin,  or  Jeconiah,  succeeds 
his  father  Jehoiakim,  as  king  of 
Judah,  and  gives  himself  up  to 
Nebuchadrezzar,  176. 

Jeremiah,  his  preaching  and  im- 
popularity,  175  :  urges  submis- 
sion to  Nebuchadrezzar,  1 77-1  So; 
endures  persecution,  iSi. 

Jerusalem,  taken  by  Nebuchadrez- 
zar, 176  ;  retaken  and  destroyed, 
181-183. 

Jews,  carried  into  captivity  by 
Nebuchadrezzar,  1S3  ;  call  Ky- 
ros,  king  of  Persia,  326,  327  : 
delivered  from  captivity  by  Ky- 
ros,  330. 

Jones,  William,  English  Oriental- 
ist, abuses  Anquetil  Duperron, 
12  ;  founder  of  Sanskrit  studies, 

15- 
Josephus,    the     Jewish    historian, 

233- 
Josiah,    king  of  Judah,    defeated 
by  Necho  at  Megiddo,  171. 

K. 

Kambujiya,  see  Kambyses. 

Kambyses  (Kambujiya),  son  of 
Kyros  the  Great,  at  Babylon, 
330  ;  viceroy  of  Babylon,  331  ; 
succeeds  his  father,  344  ;  his 
character,  344,  345  ;  prepares 
for  a  campaign  against  Egypt, 
346-349  ;  has  his  brother  Bar- 
diya  assassinated,  349,  350  ;  in- 
vades Egypt  and  defeats  Psam- 
metik  III.  at  Pelusion,  351  ; 
takes  Memphis  and  subdues  all 
Egypt,  ib.;  his  moderate  rule 
and  respect  shown  to  Egyptian 
customs  and  religion,  352-353  ; 
his  reluctance  to  return  to  Persia 
and  increasing  mental  perturba- 
tion, 354  ;  sends  an  expedition 


against  the  Ammonians  and 
himself  leads  one  into  Ethiopia, 
355  ;  receives  the  news  of  a 
general  revolt  at  home  and  the 
usurpation  of  the  throne  by  an 
impostor,  357  ;  confesses  his 
crime  and  takes  his  own  life, 
358. 

Kambyses  L,  son  of  Kyros  I., 
and  king  of  Anshan,  280. 

Kandaules,  king  of  Lydia,  story 
of,  188,  189. 

Karkhemish,  battle  of,  172. 

Karpans,  priests  of  hostile  reli- 
gions, 108. 

Kasr,  mound  of,  the  site  of  Nebu- 
chadrezzar's palace,  232. 

Kassandane.  Persian  queen  of 
Kyros  the  Great,  297. 

Kava  Vishtaspa,  see  Vishtaspa. 

Kayster,  a  river  in  Asia  Minor, 
207. 

Kertch,  ancient  Panticapseon, 
Scythian  royal  tomb  at,  419. 

Khordeh  Avesta  (Lesser  Avesta), 
a  portion  of  the  Avesta,  30  ;  its 
tendency  to  a  revival  of  polythe- 
ism, 161,  162. 

Khrafstraghna,  instrument  to 
kill  impure  animals  with,  118. 

JChrafsiras,  impure  creatures,  1 14. 

Khshathra-Vairya,  "  Excellent 
Sovereignty,"  one  of  the  Ame- 
sha  Spentas,  75. 

Kirmanshah,  modern  town  be- 
tween Baghdad  and  Hamadan, 
282. 

Kizil-Irmas,  see  Halys. 

Komana,  in  Cappadocia,  201. 

Koresh,  see  Kyros. 

Kroisos,  son  of  Alyattes  of  Lydia, 
262  ;  succeeds  his  father,  307  ; 
meditates  war  against  Kyros, 
ib.;  consults  Greek  oracles, 
308  ;  his  gifts  to  Delphi.  309  ; 
declares  war  to  Kyros,  310  ;  his 
defeat  and  capture,  310-312  ; 
his  attempted  self-sacrifice  mis- 
understood by  the  Greeks, 
313-316. 


442 


MEDIA,   BABYLON,    AND  PERSIA. 


Kshatrapa,  see  Satrap. 

Kurash,  see  Kyros. 

Kiirush,  see  Kyros. 

Kyaxares,  king  of  Media,  founder 
of  the  Median  Empire,  declares 
war  against  Lydia,  219  ,  makes 
peace,  and  marries  his  son  As- 
tyages  to  Aryenis,  daughter  of 
Alyattes  of  Lydia,  221  ;  dies, 
224. 

Kyme,  an  Ionian  city  in  Asia 
Minor,  20I,  208. 

Kyros  I.,  son  of  Teispes,  and 
king  of  Anshan,  2S0. 

Kyros  II.,  the  Great  (Kurush  in 
Persian,  Kurash  in  Assyrian, 
Koresh  in  Hebrew),  king  of 
Anshan  and  Persia,  proclama- 
tion of,  282  ;  his  conquest  of 
Media,  on  the  cylinders,  289  ; 
from  Herodotus,  290  ;  fabulous 
legend  of  his  birth  and  youth, 
291-293  ;  subdues  Eastern  Eran, 
296,  297  ;  favors  the  Persians, 
297 ;  and  next  to  them  the 
Medes,  298  ;  builds  at  Pasar- 
gadae,  300  ;  conquers  Lydia  and 
captures  Kroisos,  310-312  ;  his 
generous  treatment  of  Kroisos, 
315  ;  his  first  unsuccessful  at- 
tempt against  Babylon,  323  ; 
called  by  the  priesthood  of 
Babylon,  325  ;  enters  Babylon, 
328  ;  delivers  the  Jews,  330  ; 
honors  Yahveh  and  ^Iarduk,  yet 
remains  a  Mazdayasnian  him- 
self, 330-331  ;  uncertainty  about 
his  death,  331  ;  his  noble  char- 
acter, 332  ;  his  race  undoubted- 
ly and  purely  Aryan,  332,  note. 

Kyros,  river,  see  Pulwar. 

L. 

Labashi-Marduk,  son  and  suc- 
cessor of  Nergal-shar-uzzur,  320. 

Lacedsemon,  see  Sparta. 

Languages,  of  ancient  Persia 
(Avestan  and  Pehlevi),  20-22  ; 
of  Asia  Minor,  196  ;  of  Susiana 


or  Elam,  27S  ;  of  the  un-Aryan 
Persian  inscriptions,  286. 

Lenormant,  Fran9ois,  on  the  in- 
vention of  coining,  on  the  in- 
vention of  cheques  and  drafts, 
248-250. 

Lycia,  a  country  of  Asia  Minor, 
rock  tombs  in,  190-193  ;  sub- 
mits to  Kyros,  317. 

Lydia,  its  last  royal  dynasty,  the 
Mermnadae,  188,  189  ;  tombs  in, 
190. 

Lyon,  Dr.  D.  G.,  assyriologist,  on 
"  Tablets  of  Precedents,"  255, 
note. 

M. 

Ma,  a  Hittite  nature-goddess,  her 
temple  at  Komana,  201. 

Mjeander,  a  river  in  Asia  Minor, 
207. 

Magi,  the  Median  priests,  148  ;  a 
separate  Median  tribe,  268  ; 
probably  originally  un-Aryan, 
269.  270 ;  substituted  to  the 
Alhravans,  271  ;  their  politi- 
cal independence  and  power, 
272. 

Mandane,  supposed  daughter  of 
Astyages,  and  mother  of  Kyros 
the  Great,  291. 

Mantra  (sacred  text,  Sanskrit),  its 
power,  49. 

Manihras,  or  sacred  texts,  when 
recited,  30  ;  used  for  conjuring, 
49  ;  their  efficacy,  86  ;  against 
sickness,  138. 

Maraphians,  one  of  the  three 
noble>t  Persian  tribes,  278 

Marathon,  battle  cf,  432. 

Ma^pii,  one  of  the  three  noblest 
Persian  tribes,  278. 

Massagetce,  a  barbarous  people  by 
the  Sea  of  Aral,  331. 

Mazda,  see  Ahura-Mazda. 

Mazdayasnians,  meaning  of  the 
word,  95. 

Mazdeism,  the  religion  of  Zoroas- 
ter, essence  of,  102-104. 

Medes   (Madai),    under    Assyrian 


INDEX. 


443 


kings,  144  ;  their  origin  and  ele- 
ments as  a  nation,  267,  268. 
Median    empire,    its   constitution, 
share   of    the    Assyrian    spoils, 

173- 

tribes,  267,  268. 

■ wall,  built  by  Nebuchad- 
rezzar, 226. 

Megiddo,  battle  of,  171. 

Mermnadae,  the  last  native  dynasty 
of  Lydian  kings,  founded  by 
Gyges,  188,  189  ;  fall  of  the,  312. 

Migration  of  the  Eranians,  from 
east  to  west,  57,  143  ;  brings 
them  under  Turanian  influences, 
144,  ff. 

Miletus,  the  queen  of  Ionian  cities 
in  Asia  Minor  ;  temple  of  Didy- 
msean  Apollo  at,  209  ;  makes 
terms  with  Lydia,  218  ;  with 
Kyros  the  Great,  317  ;  revolts 
against  Dareios,  is  besieged, 
taken,  and  sacked,  430. 

Miltiades,  the  Athenian,  proposes 
to  destroy  the  bridge  on  the 
Danube,  428  ;  is  overruled  by 
Histiaios  and  the  Ionian  princes, 
429  ;  wins  the  battle  of  Mara- 
thon, 432. 

Mitkra,  the  Eranian  light-god, 
his  connection  with  Ahura- 
Mazda,  62,  63  ;  his  mythical 
features,  67-69  ;  his  allegorical 
transformation,  69-73. 

Mitra,  the  Aryan  light-god,  41. 

Mitra-Varuna,  the  Aryan  duad  or 
divine  pair,  41. 

Murghab,  present  name  of  the  site 
of  Pasargadse,  280,  300. 

Myazda,  o^enng  at  sacrifices,  120. 

Myrina,  a  Greek  city  in  Asia 
Minor,  208. 

Mysia,  a  country  of  Asia  Minor, 
196  ;  annexed  to  Lydia,  217. 

N. 

Nabonidus  (Nabu-nahid),  last  king 
of  Babylon,  his  accession,  320  ; 
his  fondness  for  the  ancient 
Chaldean  gods  and  sanctuaries. 


321  ;  neglects  Marduk  and 
Nebo,  and  makes  enemies  of 
the  Babylonian  priesthood,  321, 

322  ;  betrayed  by  them,  325  ; 
delivered  into  the  hands  of  Ky- 
ros, 328  ;  his  death,  ib.  and  329. 

Nabopolassar,  king  of  Babylon, 
dies,  172. 

Nabu-nahid,  see  Nabonidus. 

Nadintabira,  the  impostor  and  usur- 
per  of  Bab)  Ion  under  Dareios  I., 
374  ;  captured  and  slain,  376. 

Nakhshi-Rustem,  rock  of,  contain- 
ing tombs  of  Akhaemenian  kings, 
369 ;  sepulchre  of  Dareios  at, 
369,  370. 

Nasu,  the  corpse  fiend,  93  ;  exor- 
cised by  ihe  look  of  dogs,  93, 
94,  135  ;  purificalion  from,  136  ; 
probably  of  Turanian  origin, 
150. 

Ndvsdri,  a  city  on  the  western 
coast  of  India,  gives  refuge  to 
the  fugitive  Parsis,  5. 

Nebucliadrezzar,  king  of  Babylon, 
defeats  Necho  of  Egypt  at  Kar- 
khemish,  172  ;  succeeds  his 
father  Nabopolassar,  172  ;  his 
campaign  in  Syria,  174-177  ; 
besieges  and  takes  Jerusalem, 
176  ;  appoints  Zedekiah  king  of 
Judah,  177  ;  retakes  and  de- 
stroys Jerusalem,  182,  183;  be- 
sieges Tyre,  184;  makes  peace 
between  Lydia  and  Media,  221  ; 
his  works  of  defence  and  embel- 
lishment in  Bal)y!onia  and  in 
Babylon  itself,  225-241  ;  death 
of,  3T9. 

Necho  II.  succeeds  his  father 
Psammetik,  and  plans  a  cam- 
paign into  Asia,  170  ;  his  war  in 
Syria,  ib.  ;  defeats  Josiah  of 
Judah  at  Megiddo,  171  ;  is  de- 
feated by  Nebuchadrezzar  at 
Karkhemish,  172  ;  dies,  180. 

Nehavend,  battle  of,  won  by  the 
Arabs  over  the  Persians,  2. 

Nergal-shar-uzzur  (A^eriolissar), 
successor  of  Avil-Marduk,  320. 


444 


MEDIA,    BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 


Neriglissar,  see  Nergal-shar-uzzur. 

Niniitti-Bel,  outer  wall  of  Baby- 
lon, 228. 

Nitetis,  the  Egyptian  princess, 
story  of,  347. 

Nilokris,  queen  of  Babylon,  240  ; 
mother  of  Nabonidus.  320  ;  her 
death  and  mourning  for  her, 
323  ;  said  to  have  chosen  her 
sepulchre  above  one  of  the  gates 
of  Babylon,  372. 

O. 

Olbia,    the   Greek   colony   at   the 

mouth  of  the  Hypanis,  413. 
Orontes,  river,  in  Hamath,  iSi 
mountain,       by       Agbatana 

(modern  Hamadan),  263-264. 
Ouralo-Altaic,     meaning     of     the 

name,  278,  note. 
Ouranos,  Greek  equivalent  of  the 

Sanskrit  Varuna,  40. 


Palaces,  of  Nebuchadrezzar  at 
Babylon,  232,  233;  at  Agbatana, 
263-266  ;  at  Susa,  333-343 ; 
at  Persepolis,  392-411. 

Panticapseon,  see  Kertch. 

Parodarsh  ^the  Jock),  the  sacred 
bird  of  the  Avesta,  141. 

farsis,  their  small  numbers,  i  ; 
their  importance,  ib.;  their 
monotheism,  2  ;  their  settle- 
ments in  India,  5  ;  their  rever- 
ence for  fire,  6  ;  their  belief  in  a 
spiritual  hierarchy,  7  ;  profess 
themselves  followers  of  Zoroas- 
ter, ib. 

Fiirsua,  or  Barsua,  a  nation  occur- 
ring in  the  Assyrian  inscriptions, 
274. 

Pasargadce,  the  noblest  of  Persian 
tribes,  278. 

the   clan  city  of  the   Pasar- 

gadte,  279  ;  ruins  of  Kyros, 
great  palace  at,  300 ;  Kyros' 
tomb  at,  300-303. 


Pazend,  Eranian  portion  of  Peh- 
levi  texts,  22. 

Pehlevi,  the  language  of  Persia  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  20-22. 

Pelasgi,  the  old  Aryan  stock  from 
which  the  various  Greek  na- 
tions descended,  204. 

Pelasgic,  Aryan  type  of  language, 
196. 

Penalties,  for  performing  purifica- 
tion without  being  an  Athravan, 
116,  117  ;  for  burying  a  corpse, 
133  ;  for  carrying  a  corpse  alone, 
137  ;  for  ill-using  or  killing 
dogs,  140  ;  extravagant,  for 
small  offences,  158-160. 

Penjdb,  a  part  of  Northern  India, 

5- 

first  country  in  India  oc- 
cupied by  the  Aryas,  38. 

Persepolis,  capital  of  the  Persian 
kings,  burned  down  by  Alexan- 
der, 27,  342,  369,  392  ;  Akhse- 
menian  constructions  at,  392- 
411  ;  great  platform,  393,  394; 
stairs,  395-398 ;  palace  of 
Dareios,  400  ;  Hall  of  the  Hun- 
dred Columns,  400-404  ;  peri- 
style or  gate-hall  of  Xerxes, 
406  ;  audience  hall  of  Xerxes, 
406-408  ;  royal  tombs,' 41 1. 

Persian  tribes,  277-279. 

Persians,  an  Eranian  nation  kin- 
dred to  the  Medes,  and  origi- 
nally vassal  to  them,  273;  their 
hardy  nature,  276;  a  mixed  peo- 
ple, as  a  nation,  277-279. 

Persis,  classical  name  of  ancient 
Persia,  modern  Fars  or  Farsis- 
tan,  273  ;  its  climate  and  pro- 
ductions, 275. 

Phanes,  commander  of  Amasi->' 
Greek  body-guard,  deserts  to 
Kambyses,  349. 

Pheidon  of  Argos,  supposed  by 
some  to  have  invented  coining, 
217  note. 

Phraortes,  see  Fravartish. 

Phrygia,  a  country  of  Asia  Minor, 
inscriptions    and    language    of. 


INDEX. 


445 


Ig6  ;  king  of,  sends  gifts  to  the 
Delphic  Apollo,  2io. 

Physicians,  and  surgeons,  in  the 
Avesta,  138,  139. 

Pitris,  "  Fathers,"  Aryan  spirits 
of  the  departed,  53  ;  honors 
rendered  them,  54. 

Pognon,  French  Assyriologist, 
146  note. 

Pollution,  inflicted  by  the  presence 
of  a  corpse,  132  ;  on  the  earth 
by  burying  a  corpse,  133  ;  by 
the  Druj  Nasu,  135  ;  by  carry- 
a  corpse  alone,  137. 

Profession  of  faith,  see  Avestan 
Creed. 

Psammenit,  see  Psammetik  III. 

Psammetik  III.  (Greek  Psam- 
menit), son  of  Amasis,  succeeds 
him,  350 ;  loses  the  battle  of 
Pelusion,  351  ;  captured  at 
Memphis,  ib. 

Pilitika,  sea,  where  polluted 
waters  are  purified  before  re- 
turning to  the  sea  Vouru-Kasha. 

Pulwar,  river,  ancient  Kyros, 
flows  through  the  valley  of 
Murghab,  300. 

Purification,  io  be  performed  by 
none  but  Aihravans,  116,  117; 
prescriptions  for,  in  the  Vendi- 
dad,    134  ;  by  gomh,  136. 


R. 


Rachmed,  mount,  at  Persepolis, 
394  ;  royal  tombs  in,  411. 

Rages,  a  city  in  Media,  see 
Rhagas. 

Rashnu,    "uprightness,     justice," 

71  ;  159- 

RhagEe  (Rages  in  the  Book  of 
Tobit),  a  great  city  in  Media, 
157;  the  seat  of  the  "  Za- 
rathushtrotema,"  272. 

Riblah,  on  the  Orontes,  a  city  in 
Hamath,  181. 

Rig-Veda,  the  oldest  of  the  Hin- 
dus' sacred  books,  38. 


s. 

Sacrifice    demanded  by  gods,  84  ; 

its  efifiLacy,  85. 
Sadyattes,  king  of  Lydia,  his  war 

against  Miletus,  218. 
Sagdid    ceremony,     meaning    and 

description  of,  93,  94  ;  136  ;  142. 
Sakunka,  rebel  chief  of  the  Sakse, 

taken  prisoner,  381. 
Sandon,  the  name  of  the  Sun-god 

in  Lydia,  2og. 
Sanskrit,  language  and  studies,  15. 
Saidis,  capital  of   Lydia,  capture 

of,   by    Kyros,    312  ;  revolt  at, 

317.  _ 
Sassanian    dynasty,     2  ;    restores 

the  ancient  texts,  28. 
Satrap,       Persian     "  Kshatrapa," 

meaning  of  the  word,  317,  note; 

position  and  duties  of,  384-386. 
Scythia  (south  of  Russia),   known 

to  the  Greeks,  413  ;  its  rivers, 

414,  415;  its  climate,    416;  its 

people,  418  ;  their  mode  of  life, 

419  ;     their    appearance,     420 ; 

their  customs,  420-422. 
Semiramis,   building    of    Babylon 

attributed  to,  240. 
Shapur    II,     king,    proclaims    the 

Avestan  law,  28. 
Shushan,  see  Susa. 
Sippar,  reservoir  at,  dug   by  order 

of  Nebuchadrezzar,  225. 
Skoloti,  real  name  of  the    Euro- 
pean   Scythians,     according     to 

Herodotus,  418. 
Smerdis,  see  Bardiya. 
Smyrna,   a   Greek   city    in   Lydia, 

201  ;  208. 
So/na,  god  and  plant,  48. 
Spaka,   supposed  nurse   of  Kyros 

tlie    Great,    292  ;   mythical   sig- 

nificancy  of  the  name,  294. 
Sparta,  one  of  the  two  chief  cities 

of  Hellas,  also  Lacedsemon,  312. 
Spartans,     make      alliance      with 

Kroisos,   308  ;    are    too   late   to 

help  him,   312  ;  defy    Kyros   at 

Sardis,  316. 


446 


MEDIA,   BABYLON,   AND  PERSIA. 


Spenta-Armaiti.  "  Holy  Piety," 
one  of  the  Amesha-Spentas,   75. 

Spenta-Mainyu,  one  of  the  names 
of    Ahura-Mazda,    its    meaning, 

74- 

Spiegel,  Dr.  Friedrich,  Eranian 
scholar,  German  translator  of 
the  Avesta,  157,  note. 

Spitama,  name  of  Zarathushlra's 
clan,  25. 

son-in-law  of  Astyages,  king 

of  Media,  296. 

Sraosha,  "  Obedience  to  the  Law,'' 
71  ;  the  chief  of  Yazatas,  78  ; 
107.^ 

Sraosho-charana,  an  unknown  in- 
strument of  punishment  in  the 
Vendidad,  158. 

Suleiman  range  of  mountains,  274. 

Surdt,  a.  city  on  the  western  coast 
of  India,  gives  refuge  to  the  fu- 
gitive Parsis,  5. 

Susa  (Shushan)  one  of  the  capitals 
of  the  new  Persian  empire,  318  ; 
Akhremenian  palace  at,  explored 
by    Mr.     Dieulafoy,    318,    333- 

343- 
Su^iana,   ancient    Eiam,   278  ;  un- 
certain when  annexed  to  Persia, 

Syennesis,  king  of  Cilicia,  helps 
in  reconciling  Alyattes  and  Ky- 
axares,  221. 


Tablets  of  precedents,  the  base  of 

Babylonian      law     transactions, 

5252-256. 
Taera,  principal  peak  of  the  Hara 

Berezaiti,  64. 
Tanais,  modern  Don,  a   Scythian 

river,  415. 
Tanaoxares,   Tanyoxarkes,   names 

given  t^  Bardiya,  son  of  Kyros 

the  Great,  345,  note. 
Teispes  (Chishpaish  on  cuneiform 

monuments)  son  of  Akhsemenes, 

the  probable  annexer  of  Anshan, 

280,  286,  287. 


Teredon  or  Tiridotis,  a  city  built 
by  Nebuchadrezzar  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Euphrate>,  241. 

Teva,  probably  a  quarter  of  Baby- 
lon, 322,  note. 

Thales  of  Miletus,  a  wise  man 
among  the  Greeks,  predicts  an 
eclipse,  220. 

Thermodon,  a  river  in  Asia  Minor, 
201. 

Thracia,  submits  to  Dareios,  424. 

Tkraetaona,  son  of  Athwya, 
Eranian  equivalent  of  Sanskrit, 
Trita,  son  of  Aptya,  97,  note. 

Tigranes  I.,  king  of  Armenia,  said 
to  have  been  Astyages'  brother- 
in-law,  296  ;  friendly  to  Kyros, 
lb. 

Tiridotis,  see  Teredon. 

Tishlrya  (the  .star  Sirius)  the  chief 
of  all  the  stars,  81  ;  the  giver  of 
rain,  82  ;  his  conflict  against 
Apaosha,  tlie  drought  fiend, 
82,   83. 

Tombs,  Lycian  rock-tombs,  190- 
193  ;  royal  Akhasmenian,  at 
Nakhshi-Rustem,  369,  370  ;  at 
Persepolis,  411. 

Trita,  son  of  Aptya,  Sanskrit 
equivalent  of  Eranian  Thraeta- 
ona,  son  of  Aihwya,  97,  note. 

Turanian  influences  on  the  Erani- 
ans'  religion,  144-156. 

Turanians,      natural    enemies     of 

«  Eranians,  97,  98. 

Tyras,  modern  Dniestr,  a  Scythian 
river,  414. 

Tyre,  siege  of,  by  Nebuchadrezzar, 
183,    184. 


Vara,  Yima's  garden,  91,  92. 
Varuna,  the  Aryan  sky-god,  40. 
Vayu,  the  Aryan  wind-god,  46 
Veda,  sacred  books  of  the  Hindus, 
Vendidad,  a  portion  of  the  Avesta  ; 
meaning  f>f  the   word  and   con- 
tents, 30  ;  its  character,  ii3fT.  ; 
not  strictly  lollowed  by  the  Per- 


INDEX. 


447 


sians  under   the  Akhsemenians, 
370. 
Vendiddd-  Sadeh,  the  Parsi  liturgy, 

8,  31. 
Verethraghna    (victory),    71,    73  ; 
Eranian  form  of    "  Vritrahan," 

76- 

Vezaresha,   the  daeva   who    takes 

the  souls  of  the  wicked,  164. 
Vishtaspa,    or    Kava     Vishtaspa, 
King  Zarathushtra's  friend  and 
disciple,  26,  102. 

(in  Greek,  Hystaspes)  father 

of  King  Dareios    I.,   (see  Hys- 
taspes.) 

Vispered,    a   part  of   the   Avesta, 

contents,  30. 
Vohu-Mano,    "Good-Mind,"    one 
of  thd  Amesha-Spentas,  75. 

Vouru-Kasha,  sea,  mythical,  64. 

Vritra,  the  Aryan  cloud-fiend, 
46. 

Vritrahan,  "Killer  of  Vritra," 
the  proudest  title  of  Indra,  46  ; 
found  in  the  Eranian  "  Vere- 
thraghna," 76. 

W. 

West,    Dr.     E.    W.,    a     Pehlevi 

scholar. 
Women,  Babylonian,  independent 

position  of,  255-257. 

X. 

Xerxes,  son  of  Dareios  I.,  his  con- 
structions at  Persepolis,  404-408. 


Yakub,  said  to  ^  be  the  Hebrew 
equivalent  of  Egibi,  246. 

Yama,  the  Aryan  death-god,  52  ; 
first  man,  53  ;  king  of  the  dead, 
ib  J  his  dogs,  ii>. 


Yasna,  a  part  of  the  Avesta,  con- 
tents, 30. 

Yazatas  (good  spirits),  62,  66 ; 
Yzeds  of  the  Parsis,  78  ;  all 
created  by  Ahura-Mazda,  161. 

Yeshts,  a  part  of  the  Avesta  ;  con- 
tents and  character,  31. 

Yezdegerd  IH.,  last  Sassanian 
king,  3. 

Yima,  his  story,  89-93  ;  his  con- 
nection with  the  Hindu  Yama, 
89  ;  his  fall,  92. 

Yzeds,  see  Yazatas. 


Zaothra,  holy  water  at  sacrifices, 
120. 

Zarathushtra,  known  to  classic 
antiquity,  2,  7,  23  ;  was  he  a 
real  person  ?  23  ;  his  questiona- 
ble date,  ib.  ;  his  personality  as 
shown  in  the  Gathas,  24-27  ; 
was  a  reformer,  36  ;  his  mission 
and  his  work,  96. 

"  Zarathushtrotema,"  the  head  of 
the  Magi,  272. 

Zedekiah,  a  son  of  Jehoiakin  and 
brother  of  Jeconiah,  appointed 
by  Nebuchadrezzar  king  of  Ju- 
dea,  177  ;  rebels  against  him, 
180  ;  barbarous  treatment  and 
captivity  of,  182. 

Zend,  meaning  of  the  word,  20. 

Zend-Avesta,  sacred  book  of  the 
Eranians,  19  ;  an  incorrect 
name,  20. 

Zohak,  a  wicked  usurper,  a  form 
of  the  mythical  Aji-Dahaka,  93. 

Zoroaster,  see  Zarathushtra. 

Zoroastrians,  i.  e.,  followers  of 
Zoroaster,  persecuted  by  the 
Arab  conquerors,  3,  4  ;  their 
wanderings  and  landing  in  Gu- 
jerat,  4,  5. 


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